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The Last Wave



Richard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of water, slowly realizes his own involvement with the aborigines…and their prophecies.

Special Features

- New digital transfer supervised by director Peter Weir and enhanced for 16x9 televisions
- Interview with director Peter Weir
- Original theatrical trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

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Did anyone else find this movie amazing?

Amazing no, but I did enjoy it a great deal. I might revisit this in a month or so.

After the hypnotic experience that is Picnic at Hanging Rock I was expecting more. Still an awesome movie that would make my top five Weir films.

I thought the opening bit at the school house was amazing. The surrealistic set design, et al. Brilliant. (Although: what was up with the teacher's see-through blouse? Was that entirely necessary?) And then - it was cool. Very interesting. But not amazing. I liked a lot of the elements of the film, but the film was merely...adequate. (If you can use a word like 'adequate' to describe a film.) I'm glad I saw it, but it won't be going into my collection.

For me, not as amazing as "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (which I own), but certain parts of it are uniquely compelling. This would be largely due to Russell Boyd's photography and some good editing. The basic material is richer than that of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" but is is worked harder to less effect. And some inadequate acting in poorly conceived minor roles does hurt the film. Not to mention problems of budget, well disguised until the end.

Panda

I felt the film was amazing (and I did like Picnic as well - they seemed similar in respect to very strong sound design).

Did anyone else notice his glasses? At first we sort of thought it was a continuity problem - but I'm pretty sure they are metaphorical (ie, in his "reality" he wears them, when he's in the aboriginal "reality" he doesn't - after he talks with his father and learns that he dreamt the future as a child, he wears them again in a strange setting, signifying the melding of the two realities, and then they come off for the rest of the movie). Realizing this, watching the courtroom scene made my hair stand up

Good films about Australian Aboriginals are rare and I love The Last Wave. The mythology and 'Dreamtime' of the Aboriginals is truly fascinating and beautiful and this film captures the conflict of their beliefs against laws of Modern Society very well , I feel. Chamberlain is excellent and I admire Peter Weir style of filmmaking greatly.

I find the film quite disturbing. The constant rain and thunderstorms, Chamberlain's nightmares and the scene where the little girl says she saw Jesus and His Angels and says, "I love Jesus, mummy", all conjure up a particular feeling of impending doom that isn't found in other End-of-the-World films.

No one really knows how the Aboriginals got to Australia or from where or why they fled their original homeland. How long ago this happened is also sketchy. They may have been there for 80,000 years - perhaps longer. Being before the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 BCE - 8,000 BCE) it perhaps suggests a skill of navigation of the sea that was unknown to Man during this epoch. And what is the 'Last Wave'? What causes it? One theory is that global floods do occur and that advanced marinal civilisations may have existed in the distant past - indeed, as far back as 80,000 years ago. Charles Hapgood, in the mind-blowing, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966) after locating the now-famous and controversial Piri Re'is map of the world dating from sixteenth Century (the chronometer was not invented until 1735 - before this charting longitude to even an adequete degree was EXTREMELY difficult) that shows accurate cartography of Antarctica as it is beneath the ice drew the conclusion that part of Antarctica was once ice-free and had a temperate climate that sustained life - Atlantis. This race would have progressed unmolested over tens of thousands of years, mile away from less-advanced cultures slowly developing technologies and theories of the Earth, sciences and belief systems totally alien to our understanding. Hapgood suggests - and Albert Einstein agreed with him - that the Earth's crust must have shifted suddenly with such unimaginable force that it moved Antarctica into the Polar Zone, putting it 'into the freezer' so to speak, but also creating obscenely violent typhoons on a global scale that no human had or has since experienced. This is what a Last Wave is. They occur periodically throughout the Earth's life. Will it happen again? Yes.

Tutorial:: http://www.flem-ath.com/aa1.htm

the shot of the water flooding into the car through the stereo deck is one of my favorite film images. (that whole flooded-street sequence is stunning).

other than a great admiration for the formal beauty of the film, i echo the ambivalence of some of the previous posts. it sure ain't no Picnic... thank you folks, i'm here all night.

...it sure ain't no Picnic

No other film is like Picnic at Hanging Rock. I can think of no other film that has its atmosphere, mystery and striking, ethereal beauty.

I can think of no other film that has its atmosphere, mystery and striking, ethereal beauty.

Hmm.. have you seen L' Avventura?

Fair point, Michael! #-o

note to self: in debut directorial effort, include mysterious disappearance atop large rocky structure in the first act; create film with atmosphere, mystery and striking, ethereal beauty paralleled by only two other films.

Heh heh heh!

duane hall wrote:

note to self: in debut directorial effort, include mysterious disappearance atop large rocky structure in the first act; create film with atmosphere, mystery and striking, ethereal beauty paralleled by only two other films.

Not if I beat you to it!

Not if I beat you to it!

dammit! that was supposed to be a note to self. i always do that.

and i suppose 3 is a crowd... sigh... i'm doomed.

A curiosity - are there two different printings of this disc? My copy has an "Audio Options" selection on the main menu, but it seems some copies don't (like the menus on display at DVD Beaver, and apparently those reviewed for DVD Times and Digitally Obsessed). I bought mine a couple of years ago, so maybe corrected copies are now in circulation?

Just re-watched Weir's masterpiece The Last Wave, and found it even more compelling & disturbing than the first time I had seen it, years ago.

The nightmares that the RC character were having throughout the film seemed to be quite prophetic,

Spoiler

in that they seemed to be foretelling the end of the world...I got the impression that all of the bad weather events throughout the film were somehow being caused by the Aborigines - who were possibly 'mystically' getting back at the white men for taking over their land years before; as Chris Lee mentioned to the RC character, their "tribal ground" was there in the city (before the Europeans took it over)....

This film definitely has elements of a horror movie; i.e. the nightmarish dream sequences, the strange noises, etc.

The last scene where

Spoiler

RC was on the beach & looked over the ocean, only to "see" a future "last wave" coming (presumably to destroy everything) was quite unnerving, and at the same time extremely powerful...

In any case, TLW & Picnic at Hanging Rock are my two favorite Weir films - both are superb...

Hopefully, this won't be a forgery like the Hanging Rock restoration (ie a digital recreation of a restoration, instead of a proper restoration).