How do you solve a problem like the Oieans? Dune-like, The Silent Planet (2024) opens with a proverb being spoken in an alien tongue: Earth is now host to an alien species called the Oieans, though they are not the straightforward, superior civilisation which we might expect. Rather, they have arrived to Earth seeking help (and receiving mistreatment). It seems that intergalactic opportunities also bring new social problems. The situation on Earth, however, quickly recedes into being largely contextual. Our focus is elsewhere.
On penal planet #384, Earth issues are seemingly lost on the lone prisoner there, who is required to spend his time mining for a certain ore, which he then transports to an orbiting craft. To cope with his isolation, he spends his time talking to his wife, Mona. He doesn’t do this literally; he has no access to any sort of device which could facilitate this, it seems. But he dreams of her, and he imagines that he’s conversing with her. It’s his only escape from the enforced rigmarole of his days, and we also see the escalating impact of loneliness; we’re led to believe that he has been here for a number of years for some as-yet unspecified, if serious, crime.
Things change when a young woman – whom we have briefly already met – arrives on the planet with a living pod of her own, charged with offences relating to her connections with the Oieans on Earth. This blindsides the as-yet nameless man: he assumes she must be there to harm him, especially given his recent tampering with some of his prisoner kit. We soon find out more about the woman – Niyya (Briana Middleton) – who has actually been sent here under the false belief that her predecessor is in fact already dead (a penal colony of one seems strange, perhaps, but presumably the powers that be have plenty of room to do it). When the two meet theirs is initially a difficult relationship, even needlessly difficult perhaps, though this provides an opportunity for the man, now giving his name as Theodore (Elias Koteas), to develop as a character. He’s fretful and vulnerable, whereas she’s initially taciturn and much, much tougher.
But they bond, and as they do, it reveals that Theodore is clearly deeply affected by the presence of someone else after so long. This introduces us to the film’s key themes – selfhood and memory – as this new, unexpected connection kicks up a lot of dirt regarding the past for both Theodore and Niyya, all taking place under the strange influence of the planet itself.
Budgetary constraints are somewhat evident here, but for the most part The Silent Planet offers more of the modern, low key sci-fi which is popular today, and it’s here that the film plays to its greatest strengths. There are some flashier effects – some spacecraft, briefly, some planetary views and some brief depictions of the Oieans themselves, though these aspects are the film’s weaker moments aesthetically. The CGI here even occasionally risks taking the viewer out of the real story being told. However, the vistas of the penal planet (filmed in Newfoundland) look good, and the film’s finer details, such as the interiors, are more visually consistent, forming a a decent backdrop for the close focus on the cast of two, and a space where most of the film’s plot exposition and development occurs. Along the way there are some neat surprises, and excellent acting throughout.
However, the film can’t do all it perhaps strives to do, and a depleted final act means that we lose sight of some of the bigger/biggest questions and ideas. Some overreliance on flashbacks and some patchy plot points are an issue here – but perhaps most of all, the film’s clear points of comparison to Duncan Jones’s Moon (2009) reduce some of its impact. The same isolation, the loss of self, the combative relationship with a newly-arrived Other, the presence of Janey, which is an awful lot like GERTY; there’s even a fairly similar mining project taking place in both films. That’s to the detriment of the newer film, purely because Moon is so successful and – pardon the pun – so ground-breaking.
For all that, though, The Silent Ocean is still an engaging entrant into the sci-fi genre. It’s a film which has plenty to recommend it but most of all, it’s the formidable, intensely watchable performances from Middleton and Koteas which really elevate it.
The Silent Planet (2024) received its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.