L'ultima onda

It doesn't happen too often that a film has such a powerful and promising opening sequence as here in "The Last Wave". Playtime at a little countryside school in central Australia, during a sunny & cloudless November day, gets brutally interrupted when a ferocious hailstorm breaks loose and practically destroys the classroom. What an amazing start, especially if - like me - you have a fondness for cataclysmic situations and ecologic horror!

The plot then moves to big-city Sydney, but also there is heavily and non-stop raining the entire time, through which writer/director Peter Weir creates a foreboding and genuinely unsettling atmosphere. In Sydney another crucial theme of the film comes to the surface, namely an extreme clash in cultures. In one of the greatest roles of his career, Richard Chamberlain depicts lawyer David Burton, defending five aboriginals accused of murdering one of their own. Whilst getting more and more persuaded they are forming a traditional tribe within the city, Burton sees one of the aboriginal in his dreams and suffers from increasingly apocalyptic premonitions. It's almost as if our white liberal lawyer is spiritually connected to the aboriginal deity Mulkurul; - but the rebirth of Mulkurul goes hand in hand with the Armageddon!

"The Last Wave" doesn't necessarily has the most plausible script, and is quite honestly a hodgepodge of loose ideas, but Peter Weir is such a fantastic storyteller, and he makes such excellent use of locations, set-pieces, music and the rich Australian culture/history. Notably the extended sequences guided by constant didgeridoo tunes are sending shivers down the spine, and some of Burton's visions are also very depressing. The final, say, 10-15 minutes are a bit disappointing in my humble opinion, but nevertheless a recommendable Aussie cult film.

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.

Richard Chamberlain is David Burton, a tax lawyer living in Sydney, Australia who is drawn into a murder trial defending five Aboriginal men accused of murdering a fellow native in Peter Weir's apocalyptic 1977 thriller The Last Wave. Taking up where Picnic at Hanging Rock left off, the film goes deeper into exploring the unknown and, in the process, shows the gulf between two cultures who live side by side but lack understanding of each others culture and traditions. Weir shows how white society considers the native beliefs to be primitive superstitions and believes that since they are living in the cities and have been "domesticated", their tribal laws and culture no longer apply.

From the start, Burton is drawn deeper and deeper into a strange web of visions and symbols where the line between real time and "dream time" evaporates. Water plays an important symbolic role in the film from the opening sequence in which a sudden thunder and hailstorm interrupts a peaceful school recess to Burton's discovery that his bathtub is overflowing and water is pouring down his steps. As violent and unusual weather continue with episodes of black rain and mud falling from the sky, the contrast between the facile scientific explanations of the phenomenon and the intuitive understanding of the natives is made clear. Burton and his wife Annie (Olivia Hamnet) study books about the Aborigines and learn about the role of dreams in the tribal traditions. When he invites one of his clients Chris Lee (David Gulpilil) to his home for dinner, he is disturbed to find that he is the subject of an inquiry by Chris and his friend Charlie (Nadjiwarra Amagula), an enigmatic Aborigine sorcerer involved with the defendants. As Burton's investigation continues, his clients make his work difficult by refusing to disclose the true events surrounding the murder.

After Chris starts to appear in his dreams, Burton is convinced that the Aborigine was killed in a tribal ritual because "he saw too much", though Chris refuses to acknowledge this in court. Burton, becoming more and more troubled by a mystery he cannot unravel, says to his stepfather priest, "Why didn't you tell me there were mysteries?" This is a legitimate question but, according to the reverend, the Church answers all mysteries. Burton knows now that he must discover the truth for himself and enters the tribal underground caves. Though we do not know for certain what is real and what is a dream, he comes face to face with his deepest fears in a haunting climax that will leave you pondering its meaning into the wee hours of the morning.

In this period of history in which native Hopi and Mayan prophecies predict the "end of history" and the purification of man leading to the Fifth World, The Last Wave, though 25 years old, is still timely. The Aborigines are portrayed as a vibrant culture, not one completely subjugated by the white man, yet I am troubled by the gnawing feeling that we are looking in but not quite seeing. Weir has opened our eyes to the mystery that lies beyond our consensual view of reality, but he perpetuates the doom-orientation that sees possibility only in terms of fear, showing nature as a dark and uncontrollable power without a hint of the spiritual beauty that lives on both sides of time.

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.

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.