The Last Wave (1977)

I notice a lot of viewers are trying to 'understand' The Last Wave. Sometimes...understanding is 'the booby prize'. In an age of in-your-face special effects and fast action that negates thinkiing at all, this film is brilliant. Peter Weir is truly a remarkable film maker. He does something so few director's do anymore. He allows us to be involved with the story...to think for ouselves. Same as with Picnic At Hanging Rock, which I have to watch at least once a year, The Last Wave allows ME to think for myself.

Fmovies: With the tech-singularity they predicted the wrong apocalypse, which was not going backward but forward. Every bit of the film has eerie ambience, evocative cinematography-anything banal they show feels the world's about to end. Richard Chamberlain; Weir knew how to bring something unusual from straight edge leading men, here evoking some Christ-like power and conscience while trapped within those bureaucracies. White guilt? All the culture and spirituality that was lost with colonialism? (My favorite was when it showed him with the wig and such, seeming as if the film was chiding our bureaucracies, rituals and performances, while the abo's are so paired down). Whatever haunts him, he can't escape it. His own family is almost an afterthought to the euphoria of solving the mystery, of which really isn't that interesting, and the film does not quite address the irresponsibility of abandoning all family and responsibility for this. When his father tells him his dreams once came true, Chamberlain lights up, it's powerful acting (I felt that today except with tears).

"The Last Wave" is one of those movies that relies heavily on the mind. The title refers to the Aboriginal doomsday theory: there will be one last wave that wipes out everything.

David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) is a Sydney lawyer hired to defend some Aborigines accused of murder. Around this time, there has been unusually heavy rainfall in Australia. While defending the Aborigines, David learns the last wave theory, and begins to wonder whether it's just mythology.

The movie's last sequence is a metaphor for descending into the depths of one's mind. Peter Weir created a perplexing, but thought-provoking, movie. Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil (whom you may have seen in "Walkabout", "Crocodile Dundee" and "Rabbit-Proof Fence") provides an interesting supporting role as one of the defendants.

If you get a chance, watch the "making of" feature on the DVD. Peter Weir explains some of the film's undertones, some of which relate to Richard Chamberlain's background.

The Last Wave fmovies. 'The Last Wave' is far more than the sum of its parts. It's not merely a disaster film, not simply an exploration into Australian Aboriginal spirituality, and certainly more than a simple court drama. Writer/Director Peter Weir manages to take these elements to the next level to produce a truly effective and thought-provoking film with the same eerie atmosphere he gave to 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' two years earlier, that you will continue to remember years later.

When lawyer David Burton (Chamberlain) is called to defend Chris Lee (Gulpilil) over the death of an Aboriginal for which he may or may not be directly responsible, he finds himself not merely struggling to get the truth from Lee, but making sense of what he hears when it does come. As with the Aboriginal belief that there are two worlds - the everyday and the Dreamtime, the truth exists on two completely different levels, with ramifications more disastrous than Burton could ever have imagined.

No doubt the reason why 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' is better remembered is because of its enduring mystery. We are led along the same path but forced to find answers for ourselves. In 'The Last Wave', we can piece everything together by the end of the film. However, even with all the information, we have to choose how much of it we want to believe, because the film takes us beyond the borders of our normal realities.

On the production side, Weir uses his budget to great effect, progressively building a sense of doom in everything from soft lighting, to heavy rain, to good use of sound. The incidental music is unobtrusive, never trying to be grandiose. Richard Chamberlain manages to convey the bafflement the audience would doubtless feel as he tries to unravel the mystery. David Gulpilil excellently portrays a man trapped between two worlds, wanting to do the right thing, but afraid because he already knows the ending.

Put all these things together, and you have a perfect example of why David Weir is a familiar name in cinema thirty years on. Strongly recommended.

This supernatural Peter Weir thriller is truly one of the most haunting and fascinating movies ever seen. Richard Chamberlain does his best performance here as the Australian lawyer who defends a group of young Aborigins accused of murder. As he gets closer on the case, he discovers more about the main defendant, Chris, and not least about himself. Chris tells him that he is a Mulkurul, which appear to be a race of supernatural beings that lived in Australia thousands of years ago. At the same time, extraordinary high rainfall seems to confirm the Aboriginal prophecy of the coming of the LAST WAVE, the one that will drown the world.

The dream sequences and the supernatural effects enhance this movie and make it a spectacular experience. Olivia Hamnett and David Gulpilil are solid in the supporting roles, as well as the chap with the difficult name who plays Charlie, the old Aborigin who can turn into an owl. The climax and the ending don't disappoint, in contrast to many other supernatural thrillers who fall flat after a promising hour or so. However, this can not be called a pure thriller. It is a drama as well and talks about spirituality and spiritual identity in the modern world. A masterful work by Peter Weir, the master of visually stunning dramas.

Peter Weir's first international success, THE LAST WAVE is an effective chiller with a fascinating back story based on Aboriginal myth. Richard Chamberlain is quite good as a defense lawyer whose life becomes increasingly unmoored from reality as he delves into a murder case involving Aboriginal tribal rivalries. David Gulpilil plays one of the suspects, who does his best to guide Chamberlain thru the realm of 'Dreamtime', an alternate reality/timeline central to native Australian history and tribal custom. Heavy on atmosphere, deliberately ambiguous in plotting, the film builds to an unsettling finale which is somewhat diminished by poor effects, probably due to budgetary limitations. Nevertheless an intriguing film whose overall impression of mystery and dread lurking just below the surface of what we perceive as 'reality' will stay with you.