The Last Wave [VHS]

The Last Wave [VHS]
by Peter Weir

The Last Wave [VHS]

List Price: ~~$19.98~~
Our Price: $3.99
You Save: $15.99 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.34 (click here)
Category: VHS Video
See more movie releases

Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada

Product details

Actor: David Gulpilil, Frederick Parslow, Olivia Hamnett, Richard Chamberlain, Vivean Gray
Director: 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 [VHS]

Movie Review: Down Under Water
Summary: 5 Stars

Lotta rain in New York in the summer of zero nine, unprecedented bucketsful as a matter of fact, particularly over every weekend since May and come September I was frankly beginning to feel like Nick Nolte looked in his mug shot. Ordered in from Netflix in any case Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) but was oddly and sadly underwhelmed because I'd seen this feature a couple of times before, many years ago, and thought it diverting enough back then. Funny how youth is so certain about what invariably proves in time to be ineffably transient. This is true right back through recorded history too, not a modern fad by any manner of means. People and their cherished enthusiasms, huh? Next I momentarily thought about ordering Singin' in the Rain (1952) but mercifully got a hold of myself after a brief struggle. The flick what I ended up watching though was and is along with Blade Runner (1982) one of my favourite films about rain: Peter Weir's elegant, enigmatic and expertly crafted mood piece The Last Wave (1977). Not that either of these memorable movies are "about" rain so much as both both unfold amid more or less ceaseless and visually spectacular downpours. Richard Chamberlain, never better, rivets attention in The Last Wave as the increasingly bewildered corporate taxation lawyer who takes on a free legal aid case that puts a serious kink in his psychic comfort zone. Aborigines David Gulpilil and Nandijwarra Amagula are simply hypnotic here in understated but powerful turns as the knowing but reluctant tribal ferrymen. I've watched this film on VHS about a couple of hundred thousand times now and am here to tell you all that specifically the DVD is crisp and clear and unbelievably better than the tape and more generally that this is a motion picture that stands up to and in fact benefits from repeated late night screenings. The other reason I love this movie is it was filmed in Sydney and in one or two shots you get a glimpse of Sydney Harbour Bridge which just so happens be to an exact replica of my all-time favourite bridge in New York City. I refer of course to Gustav Lindenthal's magnificently sturdy and imposing Hell Gate Bridge down there on Shore Boulevard in Astoria. Impossible to calculate the number of times I've mooched about smoking cheroots under that particular stretch of rail corridor.

Movie Review: A ghost story without ghosts
Summary: 5 Stars

The Last Wave is one of my favorite films. Simultaneously eerie and meditative, it takes you and your guide, Australian lawyer David Burton (Richard Chamberlain, an American with more of a British than an Aussie accent), into a mysterious and hallucinatory world, that of the Dream Time. Defending aboriginals accused of ritual murder, Burton is swallowed by fierce and eventually overwhelming forces of the natural and the supernatural, forces that seem to foreshadow apocalyptic events. Neither of you will ever be the same again.

While the movie has some similarities with Weir's other Australian masterpiece, Picnic at Hanging Rock, it is, for me, far more suspenseful and powerful. Its use of time-lapse photography calls to mind a third great visual film, Koyannisqatsi, and its ominous interplay of shadows and light rivals the best horror films. But the visions Burton beholds are as beautiful as they are horrible. And the journey he takes into what might be both madness and sanity force you to question the very essence of reality. A wonderfully-told story, brilliantly performed, captured by a cinematic genius.

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.

Write your own review

Summary of The Last Wave [VHS]

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

Australia & New Zealand Video

Video Genres

Movies most talked about in Australia & New Zealand Video

Dogs in Space [VHS]
Fox Home Entertainment; Release date: 1988-05-12; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $144.99

Shrimp on the Barbie [VHS]
Starz / Anchor Bay; Release date: 1997-10-06; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $125.99

The Piano [VHS]
Live / Artisan; Release date: 1997-04-22; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $1.90
Price in other shops: ~~$9.98~~

The Man From Snowy River [VHS]
20th Century Fox; Release date: 2001-10-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops: ~~$6.98~~

Return to Snowy River [VHS]
Walt Disney Video; Release date: 1993-09-08; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

The Thorn Birds - The Missing Years [VHS]
Warner Home Video; Release date: 2002-01-08; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.53
Price in other shops: ~~$14.98~~

A Town Like Alice [VHS]
Starz / Anchor Bay; Release date: 1997-10-02; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $49.99

Picnic at Hanging Rock [VHS]
Homevision; Release date: 2000-06-13; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Strictly Ballroom [VHS]
Walt Disney Video; Release date: 1996-01-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

The Castle [VHS]
Walt Disney Video; Release date: 1999-11-16; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $64.95

Similar Video, DVDs, Audio CDs

Blow Up
HEMMINGS,DAVID; Release date: 2004-02-17; DVD
Best price: $13.41
Price in other shops: ~~$19.98~~

The Lady Vanishes - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-11-20; DVD
Best price: $21.39
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

The Illustrated Man
STEIGER,ROD; Release date: 2006-12-19; DVD
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops: ~~$19.97~~

The Year of Living Dangerously
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2000-06-06; DVD
Best price: $4.10
Price in other shops: ~~$14.96~~

Ten Canoes
UNIVERSAL MUSIC VIDEO DIST.; Release date: 2007-09-25; DVD
Best price: $15.57
Price in other shops: ~~$24.99~~

The Mosquito Coast
WARNER HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2008-09-30; DVD
Best price: $5.57
Price in other shops: ~~$12.98~~

We of the Never Never
Release date: 2006-06-27; DVD
Best price: $11.45
Price in other shops: ~~$24.98~~

The Vanishing - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2001-09-18; DVD
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~

The Tracker
Release date: 2005-09-27; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~

Picnic at Hanging Rock - Criterion Collection
WEIR,PETER; Release date: 1998-11-03; DVD
Best price: $18.54
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~