Rating: 
Summary: "A dream is a shadow...of something real"
Review: "What are dreams?" asks lawyer David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) of his client Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), an Australian Aborigine on trial for manslaughter."I will show you a dream," he responds. "A dream is a shadow...of something real." And, when you think about it, so are films. They are literally shadows of something real - recorded on transparent strips and projected onto screens with bright lights. Watching a good film is like dreaming while awake. Peter Weir's The Last Wave has very much the texture of a beautiful, disturbing dream. Before going Hollywood and losing his artistic teeth, he made evocative little gems like this one - full of unformed dread and pregnant with the possibility of mythic revelation. The plot concerns a routine bar fight between some Aborigines in Sydney, Australia, that ends in the death of one of them. Lawyer David Burton is called in as a Public Defender. No big deal - except that the case seems to involve a lot more than a Saturday night celebration gone horribly awry. It may, in fact, have everything to do with an ancient prophecy marking the End of the Current Age - and a catastrophe of alarming proportions. Can Burton unravel the mystery of the prophecy - and of his own true nature - in time to avert the End of the World as we know it? Like a dream, The Last Wave unfolds with its own kind of logic - a logic that finds only a vague counterpart to our everyday sort of concrete reasoning. It's persuasive, too, the way any powerful dream always is. It makes us believe dialogue like I quoted at the top of this review, even though people never really talk that way in real life. It also forcefully reminds us that there is more than one culture in the world, and that we assume we are superior simply by virtue of our technology and science, at our own peril. In many ways, The Last Wave makes me think of Werner Herzog, who also makes deliberately paced, dream-like films about cultural clashes. If you enjoy Herzog, give this film a look. As a final note, The Last Wave probably deserves a thoughtful DVD release with a decent commentary track. Hint, hint, Criterion...
Rating:
Summary: "A dream is a shadow...of something real"
Review: "What are dreams?" asks lawyer David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) of his client Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), an Australian Aborigine on trial for manslaughter. "I will show you a dream," he responds. "A dream is a shadow...of something real." And, when you think about it, so are films. They are literally shadows of something real - recorded on transparent strips and projected onto screens with bright lights. Watching a good film is like dreaming while awake. Peter Weir's The Last Wave has very much the texture of a beautiful, disturbing dream. Before going Hollywood and losing his artistic teeth, he made evocative little gems like this one - full of unformed dread and pregnant with the possibility of mythic revelation. The plot concerns a routine bar fight between some Aborigines in Sydney, Australia, that ends in the death of one of them. Lawyer David Burton is called in as a Public Defender. No big deal - except that the case seems to involve a lot more than a Saturday night celebration gone horribly awry. It may, in fact, have everything to do with an ancient prophecy marking the End of the Current Age - and a catastrophe of alarming proportions. Can Burton unravel the mystery of the prophecy - and of his own true nature - in time to avert the End of the World as we know it? Like a dream, The Last Wave unfolds with its own kind of logic - a logic that finds only a vague counterpart to our everyday sort of concrete reasoning. It's persuasive, too, the way any powerful dream always is. It makes us believe dialogue like I quoted at the top of this review, even though people never really talk that way in real life. It also forcefully reminds us that there is more than one culture in the world, and that we assume we are superior simply by virtue of our technology and science, at our own peril. In many ways, The Last Wave makes me think of Werner Herzog, who also makes deliberately paced, dream-like films about cultural clashes. If you enjoy Herzog, give this film a look. As a final note, The Last Wave probably deserves a thoughtful DVD release with a decent commentary track. Hint, hint, Criterion...
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing early film by Peter Weir
Review: 'The Last Wave' is an eerie, beautiful film by Peter Weir and is a companion piece to 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', which he made two years earlier in 1975. Though 'Wave' is set in 1970s Sydney and 'Picnic' takes place at the turn of the 20th Century, both movies revolve around the great difficulty the white settlers, who took over Australia, had in fitting in, both with the land itself and with the Aboriginal natives. After all, Aboriginal culture was ancient long before there was an England or, for that matter, a religion called Christianity. Though both movies are highly recommended, both are uniquely Australian. Those with little knowledge of the place will find themselves at a loss as to what is going on. David Burton [Richard Chamberlain] is a successful, middle-class tax attorney in Sidney. When he volunteers to take the case of several Aboriginal men accused of murder, he has little inkling of where this supposedly simple case will take him. Coincidentally, he has recently been having nightmares, one of which involves a young Aboriginal boy. He finds that the men are withholding much information. He comes to suspect that they are part of a tribe and that the crime was dictated by tribal law. His colleagues insist that there are no tribes in Sydney. Not only is David right, he discovers that there is a mysterious link between the defendants and the strange weather that has recently plagued the region. The case turns into a spiritual journey, one fraught with unanswerable questions and great danger. The laconic and underrated Chamberlain is excellent. The movie is not a thriller, and it builds to its climax slowly and deliberately. This makes David's quiet descent into madness appropriate. One of the film's greatest assets is Russell Boyd's cinematography. He beautifully captures the dichotomy between modern Sydney with its gleaming towers and the ancient world that lies hidden beneath them. His surreal, dreamlike camera work helps make up for this low budget effort's lack of special effects. By the way, an American equivalent to 'The Last Wave' is the fascinating independent movie, 'The Rapture' [1991]. Other recommended Weir movies are 'Gallipoli [1981], 'The Year of Living Dangerously' [1982], 'Fearless' [1993] and 'The Truman Show' [1998].
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing early film by Peter Weir
Review: ???The Last Wave??? is an eerie, beautiful film by Peter Weir and is a companion piece to ???Picnic at Hanging Rock???, which he made two years earlier in 1975. Though ???Wave??? is set in 1970s Sydney and ???Picnic??? takes place at the turn of the 20th Century, both movies revolve around the great difficulty the white settlers, who took over Australia, had in fitting in, both with the land itself and with the Aboriginal natives. After all, Aboriginal culture was ancient long before there was an England or, for that matter, a religion called Christianity. Though both movies are highly recommended, both are uniquely Australian. Those with little knowledge of the place will find themselves at a loss as to what is going on. David Burton [Richard Chamberlain] is a successful, middle-class tax attorney in Sidney. When he volunteers to take the case of several Aboriginal men accused of murder, he has little inkling of where this supposedly simple case will take him. Coincidentally, he has recently been having nightmares, one of which involves a young Aboriginal boy. He finds that the men are withholding much information. He comes to suspect that they are part of a tribe and that the crime was dictated by tribal law. His colleagues insist that there are no tribes in Sydney. Not only is David right, he discovers that there is a mysterious link between the defendants and the strange weather that has recently plagued the region. The case turns into a spiritual journey, one fraught with unanswerable questions and great danger. The laconic and underrated Chamberlain is excellent. The movie is not a thriller, and it builds to its climax slowly and deliberately. This makes David???s quiet descent into madness appropriate. One of the film???s greatest assets is Russell Boyd???s cinematography. He beautifully captures the dichotomy between modern Sydney with its gleaming towers and the ancient world that lies hidden beneath them. His surreal, dreamlike camera work helps make up for this low budget effort???s lack of special effects. By the way, an American equivalent to ???The Last Wave??? is the fascinating independent movie, ???The Rapture??? [1991]. Other recommended Weir movies are ???Gallipoli [1981], ???The Year of Living Dangerously??? [1982], ???Fearless??? [1993] and ???The Truman Show??? [1998].
Rating: 
Summary: A rare, subtle, chilling story.
Review: A chilling, suspenseful drama. Full of subtleties. Not a lot of action. I saw it in the theatre when it first came out, and the photography comes across much better on the movie screen than on a TV set. It is still worth seeing. It gave me goosebumps more often than I could count. It is not a film for younger people who are used to fast paced action and special effects. They yawned through the whole thing and only watched it to be polite. But for viewers who enjoy watching a story slowly unfold, it is a rare treat. The abscence of background music in most of the film only adds to the suspense.
Rating:
Summary: Future Shamans learn from Past Shamans
Review: Frankly,my college degree emphasis was on Philosophy focusing on Aesthetics; this movie is a classic. It is amazing that the time period of movie represents a conception of reality that is difficult for any film to convey. As such, modern film uses the software animation for the art of props which used to be done by artists with skilled hands. The early movies could not easily portray ideas and concepts which were beyond simple props. An example is a car scene prop - a car with a painting of a scene in the background. Dreams are the most diffifult imaginal form of concept to convey because a dream is pre-reality. Artists since the dawn of art have tried to portray dreams. From that art we arrive at religion, science and hence psychology. Art is a communication of the abstract. In this film, the Dream Time is communicated as it is: an imaginal world which overlaps the objects we perceive as a real world. Future Shamans must always be aware that our Ancestors knew what reality was based upon their sense of Pre-Imaginal Conception. Shamans of the Animalistic Religions knew that We Dream Our Reality because We Percieve through our Imaginal Sense of Reality. Never believe that the props are real. The props are the illusion. The message of this movie comes from the line; " You are already in trouble. You forgot how to dream..." We forget that the props of our world are our inventions; in another time, another realm, our beliefs mean nothing. We dreamt the meaning into them. Dream Awake; Dream Aware. The Dream Time gives us clues if we can remember that we are living our dreams, and for some our night mares. If we know that we are creating our illusions, we might be able to live like our ancestors... with the nature as our home.
Rating:
Summary: Spooky!
Review: Hollywood cinema is narrative cinema, and most American-born directors are so busy telling a story that they forget to fill the screen with something interesting to look at. Australian-born Peter Weir avoided this mistake in his early work, producing films with just a sliver of plot but with imagery that has haunted some of us viewers for decades. Both of Weir's best films were made, in Australia, in the 1970's. THE LAST WAVE (1977) may even be superior to PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), since the former ends too soon and the latter doesn't end quite soon enough. Weir's immigration to Hollywood in the 1980's drove most, but not all, of his early cinematic poetry out of WITNESS (1985) and THE MOSQUITO COAST (1986). His Hollywood films of the 90's were(surprise!) visually thin and plot heavy. Spooky, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: Haunting, beautiful, stunning
Review: I first saw this movie 25 years ago in a theater, and a few times since on late-night TV. This movie is so beautiful, so evocative that it has haunted me for 25 years! I still recall images and sounds from it, even though it's been years since I've seen it. I'm still unable to express in words the power of this movie. It's as if the repetitive images of water and destruction somehow hit on a level of your subconscious so deep that you can only feel the contact but can't verbalize it. At least that's how it affects me! Every time I see this movie, I feel stupified, stunned, blown away, a hairs-breadth away from recognizing something vitally important. I purchased this new DVD release of it, and look forward very much to viewing it with its new transfer, since the last few times I've seen it the print has been very worn.
Rating:
Summary: A dream I have seen 22 years ago
Review: I have seen this film in 1977 or 1978, long time ago. I was stunned then. During the last year I often go back (mainly in music and films) to see whether I can recover some of the old magic. Believe me, the magic of this film is still there, no matter if it seems a bit old-fashioned, that is no surprise, 22-23 years have passed since it was released. It is the kind of film that carries you away and makes you reconsinder some things in life that you were taking for granted. Great music score by Charles Wain (by the way does anybody know what has happened to this man?).
Rating:
Summary: Shocking, haunting, evocative
Review: I saw this film when it first came out in 1977. It blew my mind then. I recently saw it on television and it still blew my mind once again. Pretty good for a film that is over 20 years old. This is a fantastic film that covers a variety of genres. It's a mystery, it's a thriller, it's science fiction, it's a drama. It should appeal to anyone who like the strange and the wonderful. Richard Chamberlain is fantastic as David Burton a lawyer who finds himself representing a group of young Aborigines accused of a brutal murder. However this is not just any murder, and Chamberlain finds himself drawn into a battle between the old and the modern when he finds out that the man's death is connected to the theft of some ancient stones that depict the end of mankind. To add to his problems Chamberlain is having strange dreams, dreams in which he is surrounded by water and he is drawn to the Aborigines and the secret world of dreamtime and ancient prophesies. For David Burton is part of what is happening, he is part of something that is old as old as time, history is repeating itself and the Last Wave is about to fall... This film is packed galore with symbolism, pretty good special effects and damn good acting. David Gulpilil is great as the young Aborigine torn between the past and the present and Nanjiwarra Amagula is superb as Charlie, a pure blooded Aborigine who just might have answers to secrets spanning thousands of years. This is a thinking-person's film. It is slow moving but suspenseful and the plot is sometimes complicated but never confusing. Well worth adding to your video collection if you want something excitingly different and intellectually stimulating.
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