The Last Wave
by Peter Weir
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Product details
Actor: David Gulpilil, Frederick Parslow, Olivia Hamnett, Richard Chamberlain, Vivean GrayDirector: Peter Weir
Cinematographer: Russell Boyd
Writer: Peter Weir
Editor: Max Lemon
Producer: Hal McElroy
Producer: Jim McElroy
Writer: Petru Popescu
Writer: Tony Morphett
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog; Italian (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC, Original recording reissued
Running Time: 106 minutes
Release Date: 1994-03-25
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Rhino / Wea
Studio: Rhino / Wea
VHS Movie Reviews of The Last Wave
Movie Review: Homeowner's Insurance Won't Cover This
Summary: 5 Stars
You know the people in the movie are in for it when king-sized hailstones fall from a clear blue sky. In fact, the weather stays pretty bad throughout this atmospheric thriller, and only lawyer Chamberlain has the answer. But he's too much the European rationalist, I gather, to get in touch with that inner being that reveals itself through dreams.
Hauntingly original mystery heavy on the metaphysics from director-writer Peter Weir. Already he had shown skill at flirting with other dimensions in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Here it's the arcane world of the Australian Aboriginies that confronts the tightly ordered world of the predominant whites. Something strange is going on inside the Aboriginie community when they kill one of their number for no apparent reason. Yuppie lawyer Chamberlain is supposed to defend them in a white man's court. But the more he looks into things, the more mysterious things get, and the more interested a strange old Aboriginal man gets in him. And then there're those scary dreams that come and go at odd times.
Well structured screenplay deepens interest throughout. One reason the movie works is the background normalcy of Chamberlain's wife and little daughters. Audiences can easily identify with them. And when their little world runs into forces beyond the usual, the normalcy begins to buckle, and we get the feeling of worlds beginning to collide. Chamberlain underplays throughout, especially during the underground tour where I think he should have shown more growing awareness than he does. After all, it's the picking up of the mask that holds the key (I believe) to the riddle, yet his reaction doesn't really register the revelation.
Of course, the notion of nature striking back has a certain resonance now, thirty years later. In the film, the notion is wrapped in a lot of entertaining hocus-pocus, but the subject itself remains a telling one. One way of bringing out a central irony is the symbolism of the opening scene. A big white SUV barrels past an Aboriginal family, leaving them in the historical dust. The terrain looks like an interior tribal reservation of no particular importance to the coastal fleshpots where industry dwells. Yet, it's also a region most likely to survive anything like a destructive last wave. Perhaps there's something about past and future to think about here.
Anyway, this is a really good movie that will probably stay with you.
Movie Review: metaphysics on celluloid
Summary: 5 Stars
The acting, cinematography and storyline are all 1st rate. The Aborigines pull Richard Chamberlain into their dark nonlinear primal world where dreams are still taken seriously. The very best (and perhaps most chilling) scene is when Chris, a young Aborigine, tells Chamberlain what dreams really are while they sit around the dining room table. I was riveted (sp) to my seat during the entire movie and will recommend this film to offbeat friends.
Movie Review: Myth and mystery very thought provoking
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is an old favorite of mine. This purchase was a gift for a friend. I would love to see some of the material expanded upon. So many areas were touched. One of the memorable moments for me was when the Aboriginal Shaman asked the question "Who are you?" with such intensity it began to shift the hero's perception of himself. Don't want to give any of this story away. It should be new and surprising to each viewer. Definitely held my attention. The cast was great. Movie Review: "The Last Wave" - a thought-provoking mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
The Last Wave, set the the "Outback" of Australia, delivers not only a first class mystery tale, but effectively moves you into the intriguing realm Australian aboriginal spirituality. In this case, the theme involves cultures in conflict with the protagonist(played by Richard Chamberlain), a lawer and a "rational man", finding himself defending aboriginal Australians in a "Voo Doo Death" case. He gradually finds himself involved in a mystery that goes far beyond the trial of the accused. The deeper mystery unfolds as he discovers his "dreamtime" connnection to the accused aborigine and that his survival may depend on understanding the truth in time. Watch this movie and enjoy a well-acted, cinamatic beauty, that is a both a thought-provoking and adventurous mystery from "down under".Movie Review: The Last Wave
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Last Wave" is a hard movie for me to grade. I want to give it 3 stars, for the entertainment grade...But I don't think, what amounts to, a 'C' sums up the entertainment value. It's a movie that deserves 4 stars, not necessarily because it's a really good movie but because there are so many "really good" things about it. The movie is entertaining, but not massively. It's directed by Peter Weir, whose credits include The Truman Show, Master & Commander, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. I've seen the two formers and own the latter and all the films have some similarities. They have their creators mark on them for sure. In one critics review for the film they compared it to Picnic at Hanging Rock. While Picnic is a film with an impenetrable mystery at its core, The Last Wave spends too much time
solving its mystery. That, for me, wasn't a problem. The movie stars Richard Chamberlain (an actor who seems to be known more for his homosexuality than his acting career) as an Australian lawyer named David Burton, a family-man, hired as a lawyer for a group of Aborigines accused of killing one of their own. Burton struggles to find out what events transpired, but the group isn't talking. Only when one of the aborigines, named Chris Lee (David Gulpilil, 'Walkabout'...Credited here as 'Gulpilil'), whom David has been seeing in his dreams, appears do things start to come together. As David digs deeper into the mystery of what he believes was a tribal murder, based on the theft of a sacred stone, he finds (through apocalyptic visions of water, that he has) that he may have more in common with the Aborigines than he though. The movie employs great cinematography, a trait that succeeds in making the film better. The acting is really good, which has to do, in part, with its realism. Many (if not all) of the Aborigines are played by real Aborigines. Gulpilil himself is an Aborigine, who just frequently turns up in films. Chamberlain is very good as the lawyer, although I had to stifle a laugh in the courtroom scene, due to his wig. The movie isn't "great" but it's definitely very good and if you want to see it, it's not a waste of time or anything. The Criterion Collection has, once again, done a fine job with the DVD.
GRADE: B
Summary of The Last Wave
Nominally a supernatural thriller, Peter Weir's third feature resonates with the director's underlying fascination with the collision between the modern, rational world and the primordial mysteries of older belief systems. In The Last Wave, the keys to an enigmatic murder, as well as baffling disturbances in the weather, are gradually revealed to an Australian lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) within the shadowy, nomadic culture of aborigines living in and around Sydney who until now were presumed to be assimilated into its modern--and white--social fabric. In the process, Weir brings us toward an apocalyptic climax that is foreshadowed with a haunting series of events that cohere around water imagery, from an improbable drowning on dry land to downpours from cloudless skies, sudden hailstorms on the sere Australian land, and ghostly invasions of frogs.The film's power (as well as what skeptics might regard as its pretension) emanates from Weir's stately, deliberate pace. Violating most of the conventions of suspense, he unravels his mystery with an unsettling calm underscored by its sparse soundtrack, which replaces conventional orchestral cues with the low, brooding rattle and hum of the didgeridoo. Instead of sudden camera movements or quick cuts, Weir circles his subjects almost diffidently. The stillness of that approach only amplifies the mounting unease Chamberlain's character, David Burton, feels as he steps for the first time beyond the bland safety of his privileged life and into the mystical world of the native Australians. Taking on the defense of the aborigines suspected of murdering the drowned man through tribal magic, his own beliefs are tested by the suspects' evident, intuitive connections to nature.
Chamberlain's Anglicized performance seems fussy and epicene, which only heightens the quiet intensity and watchful grace conveyed by the two aborigines, Chris Lee (David Gulpilil) and the shaman, Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), who give Burton his first glimpse of their culture's "dreamtime" and the potent symbolism it contains. --Sam Sutherland
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