The Last Wave (1978)

It is a performances centric movie

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

What Weir succeeds in doing here is maintaining an atmosphere of pervasive dread throughout The Last Wave. With his massive fire hoses he will flood the vast red outback with a rare rainstorm, and then move towards his focused territory, by letting the elements smash windows and enter the man made domain. The rain-clouds hover over the urbanised city like a great grey shroud, and what little life and colour is lost in the showers. And then he will use movement in order to close into our characters. First, closeups of a trickle of water down stairs that seems almost harmless in comparison, but quickly gains momentum and a determined will of its own. Then he will slowly zoom into the family dinner table, as if the water has already reclaimed upstairs and is about to take the dining room too. It's a marvellous little bit of camera-induced claustrophobia, fear in the most apprehensive way, slow moving, implacable, unstoppable. Of course it is just a bathtub overflowing, but it begins to mean a lot more for David Burton, the Sydney-based solicitor. Unfortunately what Weir cannot do is match this with mood with an engaging, thoughtful narrative. It is not dissimilar to the problems I had with Picnic at Hanging Rock; a vague, ominous sense of foreboding, mystical powers that go unexplained, a mystery that goes beyond mankind's grasp. And it is broached in a way that has become more and more wearisome in recent times; a white man accidentally stumbles upon a thousands of years old secret, a festishsised native of the land, the mystic power that runs through their veins. David attempts to unlock the mysteries in a court session, but even more so from a modern perspective it feels like he is not only explaining this to himself, but to the audience. There is no subtext, no discourse attempted to unravel the multitude of issues regarding the Indigenous Aboriginal identity, how it is morphed within a urbanised context, how their morality is at odds with the western-centric law system, how their sense of community has been displaced, and so on. It descends into your standard horror/thriller riddled with suspense. It is a pity too, because the suspense is so well done. The visuals become a way of boring into the subconscious of David, and the awakening of his paranoia and fears - as the Mulkurul's duty is to warn of the coming apocalypse. His visions becomes surreal, and flicker between reality and dreamtime; a plague of descending frogs ala bible style, a stream of water trickling from his car dash that had just giving a rational explanation for the black globs of rain obscuring his windscreen, and then his whole car enveloped in a underwater trance. His dreams begin to haunt him - the camera moves quickly through the halls of the apartment, unnerved, as if running from an unseen beast, and then into David's own bedroom, peering down upon his place of solace, stalking, observing, threatening. Car fog-lights in the night become a shimmering, gliding phenomena, marring his rational mind. And in Wain's soundtrack, with the sinister synthesizer backing, and the soft but creeping didgerirdoo, we become aware of danger before we even see it, as though we too have inherited David's dreamlike sixth sense. But Weir veers too deeply, and what was seductive and fear-inducing becomes disorientating. He robs us of our senses by having David manoeuvre through dark tunnels and caves, and in a rare moment of genius, contrasts the feeble light of his flash-light alongside Charlie's dancing, lively flame. But he turns away, grabs blindly at a relic that may or may not be important, and staggers out into the real world again. This ending is supposed to be ambiguous, but Weir renders this effect impotent by showing the unending wrath and power of the waves of the ocean in an entirely separate frame from from David's blinking, disbelieving eyes. This seems to be the result of a small budget - and if you look carefully and spot the surfer on the beach of David's apocalyptic vision, you would tend to agree.

A Sydney lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) defends five Aborigines in a ritualized taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing things about himself.Besides being a great film with a legal angle and a murder mystery angle, this is a great look at different cultures (particularly aborigine culture), how they interact, and the concept of "dream time" which may not be known to white Australians and certainly is unknown in the United States.Peter Weir, more than any other director, has really brought Australia to the world and showed its best sides and why we should care.

A crushing hailstorm in Sydney, Australia is bad enough to injure schoolchildren. Heavy rains continue while successful lawyer Richard Chamberlain (as David Burton) dines with his wife Olivia Hamnett (as Annie) and two little daughters. Upstairs, their bathtub overflows, causing water to run down the stairway. The taps seem to have turned on by themselves. The rains continue to slam down on residents as Mr. Chamberlain agrees to defend five Aborigines (native Australians) accused of drowning a man...Chamberlain is startled upon meeting one of his five wayward clients, eerie David Gulpilil (as Chris Lee), who previously appeared to him in a dream or vision. When even more mysterious Nandjiwarra Amagula (as Charlie) appears, the plot thickens. The rain turns darker..."The Last Wave" is an interesting take on the Sumerian "Flood Story" re-told in tales of Gilgamesh and Noah. It seems appropriate that a fourth flood (by one count, anyway) should herald an Apocalypse. Although story gets washed away in hocus pocus; it is thought-provoking, well directed by Peter Weir, and beautifully photographed by Russell Boyd. You could probably come up with several better endings; a simple re-editing of what is there would be more satisfying and less confusing.******* The Last Wave (11/5/77) Peter Weir ~ Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil, Nandjiwarra Amagula

Across the great divide which we call understanding, there is still much we do not know about that which was explained by the early tribal Elders. In every instance, there is much concerning the dangers of knowing too much. Conversely, there are those who warn us of not preparing for what they warn is the 'End Time.' In this movie called " The Last Wave " an aboriginal native is murdered for no apparent reason. When those responsible are arrested, they remain silent less they disturb the order of things. David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) plays the Defense Attorney assigned to defend the accused. Although haunted by prophetic images from his own childhood and warned by modern signs given to him by an sympathetic Aboriginal named Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), Burton proceeds to defend the infraction as Tribal Law and therefore not subject to standard justice. The movie is fraught with puzzling, dark foreboding images of apocalyptic end world disasters and warns of a future island tsunami and doom. Black drama and deep rituals are what gives this film it's frightening allure and therefore is not for the faint-hearted, in fact the simplest haunting apparitions can last for years in the nightmares of innocent movie goers. Good silent drama. ****