The Last WaveNo matter how comfortable we get with modern living and our predilection to transform our world to suit our contemporary needs, nature always has the final say. The Last Wave is a surreal movie that is equal parts legal drama, supernatural thriller, and apocalyptic disaster movie. A corporate tax attorney in Sydney, Australia named David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) takes a criminal case to defend five Aboriginal men accused of murder. Although the autopsy suggests that the victim--Billy Corman (Athol Compton)--was drowned, the truth was that he was slain by mystical means for breaking tribal law. And the key to unlock both the case and the mysterious dreams David has been having have something to do with one of the defendants--the taciturn Chris Lee (David Gulpilil).
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The Last Wave was directed (and co-written) by Peter Weir, who also directed Picnic at Hanging Rock before this. The two films share much in common--aside from merely being set in Australia--predominantly in the way that dreams factor into the story. In Picnic at Hanging Rock, a class of teenage girls from a boarding school at the turn of the 20th century take a picnic at Hanging Rock (an equivalent to Ayers Rock, which itself has a great deal of Aboriginal mysticism tied to it). When three of the girls and a teacher go missing, chaos starts to weave its way into the small community, and at times, reality all but breaks down. There is a similar mystical conceit at play in The Last Wave, albeit one that is loosely framed around an altogether unimportant courtroom drama. Heck, we don't even get introduced to our protagonist (David) until quite a ways into The Last Wave. Instead, we start off with a scene of school children and their teacher in the outback being barraged by heavy rain and then massive hail. After this, we are shown Billy's final moments. There is tension steeped throughout these scenes, from the cloudless downpour to the panicked Billy crawling his way out of a rat-infested sewer. Chris (in shadow) warns Billy of his transgression, who contritely relinquishes some stolen Aboriginal relics and tries to evade punishment by sheltering himself in a crowded bar. Enter Chris and his four accomplices. They assault Billy and chase him into a dark alley; and then things get strange. From a car window, a mysterious shaman--later named "Charlie" (Nandjiwarra Amagula)--waives a "death bone" at Billy and chants; Billy dies from a heart attack moments later. Only then do we first see David, stuck in his office, then stuck in traffic behind the same bus as always, as the rain pours down so mightily that it obscures the city almost entirely. (A clever cinematic trick to make it less obvious that the scene was likely shot on a set.) Back home, his children have inadvertently flooded the upstairs by leaving their toys in the still running bath, gallons of water descending the carpeted staircase. It's been said that The Last Wave is the "wettest" of movies, and that's spot on. Furthermore, there is an overbearing dread to the presence of water in this movie, as though it is always on the verge of overwhelming everyone and everything around it. Even in David's dreams, it is always raining heavily, and the rain gets only worse and more sinister as the film progresses. (Owing to a notable scene in the movie, The Last Wave was released as "Black Rain" in the US.)
If one were to watch The Last Wave expecting a run-of-the-mill murder mystery/courtroom drama, they would be surely taken aback by the predominance of surreal scenes and unnerving level of mysticism. In truth, I wouldn't be surprised if this film inspired some of David Lynch's films, like Blue Velvet or Inland Empire, in how it takes a simple--even pedestrian--plot and warps it beyond recognition. This makes it seem somewhat inappropriate to emphasize the anti-climactic courtroom scene at the end, where David compels Chris to speak "only the truth" as he is essentially interrogated by his own lawyer about the nature of tribal law and a mysterious triangular stone marked with a primitive carving of a face. Although he does this to try to get his clients acquitted for the murder on the basis that if falls under the purview of Aboriginal tribal law (and not Australian law proper), all of this feels like a distraction from the altogether soporific and weird imagery that make up the majority of The Last Wave. Like with Picnic at Hanging Rock, what is most compelling about this movie is what goes unsaid...how the mind fills in the blanks to make sense of the strangeness of these unanswered questions. Consider when David dreams of Chris before he even meets him, standing in his vestibule, covered in rain, holding the bloody totem in his hand. When David brings himself to ask Chris about it, Chris response comes in a matter-of-fact way. He explains that most people have "forgotten" what dreams are. And when David later investigates a phrase Chris uses to describe him, as a "Mulkurul", he learns that the implication is that he is descended from beings that came from "the sunrise" (the East), and are even implied to be aliens. The realm of dreams in Aboriginal culture--referred by some as "Dreamtime"--is (as explored in Picnic at Hanging Rock to a smaller degree) a place where the world is in a "heightened state of reality". It is a place that is mysterious and enigmatic, more so for someone like David who has only understood life through the lens of Western civilization. The thought that he is more deeply tied to something mystical attracts him, and even consumes him. By the end of The Last Wave, all of these feelings of revelation have washed over him...or "crashed" over him more like. Is David truly a visionary of an apocalypse on the horizon, or is he simply seduced by the idea that there is more to life than the routine business of suburban living and work? Whether you conclude that David is driven mad by the end of the film or rather that he has awakened to a newfound perspective is one of the most remarkably subjective and appealing aspects of The Last Wave, enduring long after that menacing final shot.
Recommended for: Fans of a strange and unorthodox film that uses a visual motif of heavy rain and flooding to conjure feelings of dread which remain fixed at the forefront of our minds as we watch. The Last Wave may not be as beautifully hypnotic as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and its obsessive fixation on Aboriginal tribal law will likely feel baffling to audiences not from Australia. (Additionally, frequent instances of overacting makes the film feel less technically accomplished than its predecessor.) Nevertheless, The Last Wave succeeds at least at beguiling its viewers with dreamlike imagery and mysterious happenings that foster feelings of unease that linger with us from start to finish.
If one were to watch The Last Wave expecting a run-of-the-mill murder mystery/courtroom drama, they would be surely taken aback by the predominance of surreal scenes and unnerving level of mysticism. In truth, I wouldn't be surprised if this film inspired some of David Lynch's films, like Blue Velvet or Inland Empire, in how it takes a simple--even pedestrian--plot and warps it beyond recognition. This makes it seem somewhat inappropriate to emphasize the anti-climactic courtroom scene at the end, where David compels Chris to speak "only the truth" as he is essentially interrogated by his own lawyer about the nature of tribal law and a mysterious triangular stone marked with a primitive carving of a face. Although he does this to try to get his clients acquitted for the murder on the basis that if falls under the purview of Aboriginal tribal law (and not Australian law proper), all of this feels like a distraction from the altogether soporific and weird imagery that make up the majority of The Last Wave. Like with Picnic at Hanging Rock, what is most compelling about this movie is what goes unsaid...how the mind fills in the blanks to make sense of the strangeness of these unanswered questions. Consider when David dreams of Chris before he even meets him, standing in his vestibule, covered in rain, holding the bloody totem in his hand. When David brings himself to ask Chris about it, Chris response comes in a matter-of-fact way. He explains that most people have "forgotten" what dreams are. And when David later investigates a phrase Chris uses to describe him, as a "Mulkurul", he learns that the implication is that he is descended from beings that came from "the sunrise" (the East), and are even implied to be aliens. The realm of dreams in Aboriginal culture--referred by some as "Dreamtime"--is (as explored in Picnic at Hanging Rock to a smaller degree) a place where the world is in a "heightened state of reality". It is a place that is mysterious and enigmatic, more so for someone like David who has only understood life through the lens of Western civilization. The thought that he is more deeply tied to something mystical attracts him, and even consumes him. By the end of The Last Wave, all of these feelings of revelation have washed over him...or "crashed" over him more like. Is David truly a visionary of an apocalypse on the horizon, or is he simply seduced by the idea that there is more to life than the routine business of suburban living and work? Whether you conclude that David is driven mad by the end of the film or rather that he has awakened to a newfound perspective is one of the most remarkably subjective and appealing aspects of The Last Wave, enduring long after that menacing final shot.
Recommended for: Fans of a strange and unorthodox film that uses a visual motif of heavy rain and flooding to conjure feelings of dread which remain fixed at the forefront of our minds as we watch. The Last Wave may not be as beautifully hypnotic as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and its obsessive fixation on Aboriginal tribal law will likely feel baffling to audiences not from Australia. (Additionally, frequent instances of overacting makes the film feel less technically accomplished than its predecessor.) Nevertheless, The Last Wave succeeds at least at beguiling its viewers with dreamlike imagery and mysterious happenings that foster feelings of unease that linger with us from start to finish.