La dernière vague

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.

THE LAST WAVE is never going to win over the mainstream audience. It is a slow-moving but fascinating film for those who are willing to go along with it. An Australian properties lawyer is asked to take on the case of five aborigines accused in the murder of one of their own. All sorts of portents and omens soon pop up, as the man's death involves a tribal issue that was not meant for white man's court, and pretty soon the lawyer is having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. It looks like the end of the world may be at hand, and he and the aborigines may know this but no one else does. Richard Chamberlain as the lawyer is at his peak here. David Guptil, a familiar face from several other Australian flicks and a decent actor, is one of the five aborigines on trial. THE LAST WAVE is simply not for everyone, anymore than is MAGNOLIA (both happen to have strange things falling from the sky). Check it out on a slow Saturday night.

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.

"Pretentious" seems a popular word amongst reviewers of this thought-provoking film. HOW I wonder would "they" have made it, given the opportunity? I am saved from further contemplation along these lines by the fact that Peter Weir made it.....and rather well, I hasten to add.

A worthy successor to PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK in as much as the viewer is left with his or her own interpretation of what they have just seen. Events occuring in an everyday environment but where the line between fantasy and reality is so blurred, no lens can be found to bring up a sharp focus. It is a disturbing film which highlights and pays homage to the Aboriginal dreamtime.

Chamberlain, in one of his best roles (made even better when you reminisce about the celluloid embarrassments BELLS, KING SOLOMON'S MINES and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) plays a hot-shot Australian attorney (complete with DR KILDARE accent) who is called upon to defend a small group of Tribal Aborigines on what appears to be an "open and shut case" murder charge. Initially he finds his clients anything but co-operative and seemingly disinterested by the threat of the white man's legal system. Aspects of the case begin to disturb him and he is drawn into a world of ancient beliefs, symbolic half-lives, a very dimension that causes him to question his own comfortable existence and purpose. Central to his dreams is one of the Defendants (brilliantly played by Australian actor David Gulpilil) who appears existentially, perhaps a disembodied spirit (?), holding out to him a sacred stone with ancient cabalistic markings. He learns that the aboriginal man who was killed was the victim of tribal law and that he must not, cannot, intervene.

The nightmare spills over into real-time...black rain, (we have already witnessed hailstones crashing into a tiny outback school from cloudless skies!) water prophetically leaking through his roof and cascading down the stairs. Visions of a great flood. He becomes obssessed with seeking the truth, not only of what is going on around him, but who he is? The scene where he confronts the Head Tribal Elder in his inner city squat is totally chilling. The viewer's own close and comfortable existence is challenged and put up for re-evaluation here.

Eventually and too late of course, he stumbles across the truth. But IS it? Has he been played for a fool? Has the audience? Much was made at the time of the film's release, that the final scenes were a total cop-out. I even thought as much myself at the opening night. Amazing what a almost a quarter of a century's personal development and insight can do for you. Like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, this film needs to be seen at different stages of your life to appreciate what Peter Weir knew and was trying to say in 1977.

I am a big fan of this film and may not be able to make a coherent case for it, especially after reading some of the lukewarm comments some of the viewers offer. I agree that some of the themes could have been developed better, and think that the ending smacks of a "Planet of the Apes" solution to a mystery, yet this film is superb for its relentless atmosphere of otherworldly possibility.

Perhaps I associate this film with the strangeness of the 1970's, when Pyramid Power, UFO cults, and interest in occult phenomena occupied much of popular culture. Weir plays on the apocalyptic feelings of many in that decade with his shots of mud falling from the skies and other phenomena. One of my all time favorite scenes is when Charlie the shaman visits the urbane upper-middle class household of Richard Chamberlain et al. and asks to see the family photo album. I still get chills up my spine thinking of that one.

An element that I enjoyed is the counter-intuitive idea that "there are no tribal aborigines" living in Australian cities...they are all assimilated into the European worldview. This opinion, asserted by the most prominent aborigine in the movie, is subverted bit by bit until the very structure of European logic (as represented by the lawyer Chamberlain) is completely undermined by the end of the movie. Another amazing touch is the juxtaposition of the aboriginal sacred cave complex and what the Europeans are using it for, and Chamberlains descent into all that darkness.

Don't try viewing this one on a commercial channel, it will make very little sense broken up in pieces. Rent it, suspend disbelief a little, and enjoy.