The Last Wave

Infobox Film
name = The Last Wave


caption = Original Movie Poster
imdb_id = 0076299
writer = Peter Weir
Tony Morphett
Petru Popescu
starring = Richard Chamberlain,
Olivia Hamnett,
David Gulpilil,
Frederick Parslow
director = Peter Weir
music = Charles Wain
cinematography = Russell Boyd
producer = Hal McElroy
Jim McElroy
distributor = United Artists
editing = Max Lemon
released = flagicon|Australia December 13, 1977
flagicon|USA December 19, 1978
runtime = 106 mins
language = English
amg_id = 1:28407
budget = AU$818,000
(US$618,000)

The Last Wave is a 1977 Australian film directed by Peter Weir about a man who experiences premonitions of disaster.

Plot

The film begins at an Australian school in the desert. Even though there are no clouds in the sky, the children hear thunder and a storm soon breaks out. In quick succession, a pounding rain, followed by grapefruit-sized hail, assail the schoolhouse. All while the sun is shining.

The rest of the film follows the personal journey of a corporate tax lawyer, plagued by recurring dream premonitions, who takes on the legal case of Aborigines accused of murdering one of their group. The lawyer begins to suspect these are "tribal Aborigines" living in the city, and that the death was a tribal killing (and subject to tribal law). As he questions one of the men, Chris, he suspects that his dreams are related to the case... and to the increasingly strange weather phenomena besetting the city. As his dreams intensify, and his obsession with the murder case overcomes his life, the strange weather begins to bode of a coming apocalypse.

Rather than spell out the obvious spooky elements, Weir uses inference and mystery to build suspense. The film finally climaxes in a confrontation between the lawyer and the tribe's shaman in a subterranean sacred site beneath the city. The lawyer wins, killing the shaman and escapes to the surface to warn everyone about the Last Wave, but realises it's too late when he sees the wave bearing down on the city. The movie ends with a shot of the lawyer collapsing in despair.

Production

In an interview on the Criterion Collection DVD release, director Peter Weir explains that the film explores a question that occurred to him “What if someone with a very pragmatic approach to life experienced a premonition?”

Tagline

"The Occult Forces. The Ritual Murder. The Sinister Storms. The Prophetic Dreams. The Last Wave."

ee also

* South Australian Film Corporation
*List of Australian films
*Dreamtime

External links

*imdb title|id=0076299|title=The Last Wave
* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=142&eid=184&section=essay Criterion Collection essay by Diane Jacobs]
* [http://colsearch.nfsa.afc.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=Number%3A2;querytype=;rec=0;resCount=10 The Last Wave at the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia]