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The Last Wave Reviews

The Last Wave is bold and wonderful strange. It comes packed with rain-soaked foreboding and a then-progressive, muscular attitude to indigineity in 1970s Australia.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 26, 2021

Unfortunately, Weir's deftness with 'atmosphere' seems to have been developing at the expense of any narrative or thematic sense.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2020

Its creepiness is undeniable, and it seems far less dated than many late 1970s films.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 13, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 4, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 17, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 29, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 9, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 6, 2003

Startling and mesmerizing Australian film about aborigines, nature and dreamtime.

Full Review | Sep 1, 2002

There's plenty of floods, thunderheads, cars submerged in water and heavy downpours to get yourself all wet on.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 16, 2002

a unique film that bears the uneven, yet genuine, traces of a deeply felt work not entirely settled

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 16, 2001

Weir does a fine job of weaving real events with dream sequences, as well as capturing the aboriginal perspective.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2001

Weir's touristy vision is strictly from the outside looking in.

Full Review | Nov 27, 2001

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 19, 2001

An interesting mixture of dreams and reality, of occult Aborigine tribal rituals and of modern-day Sydney.

Full Review | Jun 13, 2001

Similar to Weir's previous film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, but not as powerful

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 1, 2000

The Last Wave (1977)

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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.

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Review by Dave Jackson Pro

The last wave 1977.

Watched Dec 03 , 2019

Dave Jackson’s review published on Letterboxd:

From its strange opening scenes, The Last Wave is a film that floats, trapped between worlds. It's permanently wet. Rain pouring down from clear skies. Reality never sits still. Nothing is clearly defined. Its imagery is not always successful and sometimes it slips from hypnotic to boring, but it has some deliriously great moments. Richard Chamberlain's recurring dreams are swirling brilliance, and the film's final scenes are absolute magic.

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An Authentic Dreamtime: David Gulpilil and The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977)

This is a big, true story of my people … (David Gulpilil, Ten Canoes )

Over more than thirty years, actor, dancer, musician and visual artist David Gulpilil has been deeply engaged in telling the “big, true” stories of his people. When Peter Weir made The Last Wave in 1977, the process of working with Gulpilil and other Indigenous actors opened a door to a new way of seeing the world. They created what Gulpilil himself has described as a film that was not only “very important for his people”, but also one which he said was “the first film to authentically describe Aboriginal ‘Dreamtime’ mythology”. (1)

The Last Wave is significant as a major film of the 1970s Australian film renaissance, a critically well-received film from a leading director of that period, and also, a marker film in the career of David Gulpilil. At 24, he had been acting in Australian film and television for six years since his debut in Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971 UK/Australia). The Last Wave was a key film in a journey that was to become both his life’s work, and his most important contribution to Australian cinema: to engage in a dialogue with Australian auteurs, audiences and Indigenous people to communicate Aboriginal identity, culture, values and history.

I say this not to downplay his enormous talent as one of Australia’s most significant and respected actors, but to identify the way in which he has used that talent for his people, the land he loves, and an agenda to communicate Aboriginal knowledge. He has been centrally preoccupied with engaging in a dialogue that communicates that we are ‘all one red blood’ (2) – which is not only to say that we are all human, but also that we are interconnected and share a mutual history.

Peter Weir has said that he wrote the role of Chris Lee specifically for Gulpilil (with Tony Morphett), and that it was inspired by interchanges with him. Weir has recalled an illogical conversation that ‘drew’ him ‘to write a part for Gulpilil. I’d never written a part for a person. It’s dangerous: you might not be able to get the person’. (3) An intercultural exchange informed Weir’s understandings, as he has recalled:

… we were chatting in a bar one night after work and he said some things about his family and then suddenly he said some English sentence. It was something like, “You see my father and I and that’s why because the moon isn’t.” And I said, “What’s that mean – your father and I and the moon isn’t?” And he repeated it. I said, “David, I don’t understand.” And he said it again. This was ridiculous – we’d been talking. I said “What are you talking about?” So he rearranged the sentence. It still made no sense. Well, I had to leave it, otherwise we couldn’t continue the conversation. And I thought about it that night and the next morning and suddenly I realized what it was. That he was talking about another perception. He was talking about an experience for which there is no words. He’d seen something in another way. (4)

The conversation between the two men, and later with Amugula Nadjiwarra (who played Charlie), possibly delivered the ‘authenticity’ Gulpilil claimed the film achieved in relation to the Dreamtime. Gulpilil led Weir to understand something about Aboriginal culture that came to form the basis of the film. The Dreamtime is non-linear, the past, present and future all happen simultaneously, and this is the state which audiences experience in Weir’s film. As I have written elsewhere, Gulpilil has spent his career in dialogue with auteurs, sharing Indigenous knowledge, (5) and this is his central project, which he communicates not just with his interactions with the filmmakers, but through his performance.

Weir has observed that ‘certain scenes in the film were all his [Gulpilil’s], such as those about getting messages from his family through a twitch in his arm — those were either added by Gulpilil or by Nadjiwarra’. (6) An example of this occurs in a scene early in the film at the home of lawyer David Burton. Lee offers that there are other ways of being in the world and understanding it, or of “knowing things”). He illustrates this by pinching the skin on his arm and telling Burton that he will have a bodily reaction (a twitch), should his family need to call him. Moving the overhead light without taking his intense gaze off Burton, he says that a dream is just ‘a shadow of something real’, expressing the belief that dreams are reality from an Aboriginal perspective. Through this, the film’s story emphasizes Gulpilil’s message that we need to think outside our own perceptual schema — he shares Indigenous knowledge that underscores the idea that European ways of thinking do not explain all phenomena. Gulpilil uses his body, his gaze, and silence in his performance to communicate his Aboriginal perspective. (7)

Weir has said that his favorite scene is the dinner sequence early in the film; according to him, ‘Nadjiwarra put in all the lines about the law and the law being more important than the man, and that is really the heart of the film’. (8) For Aboriginal people the Dreamtime or creation period was when the laws were set down and cultural custom established. So the identification of the importance of law as being at the ‘heart’ of the film, locates the conversation Weir was having with his Indigenous collaborators as being about the paramount importance of culture and custom. It may explain how the film works towards the ‘authentic’ depiction of Aboriginal mythology that Gulpilil identified. The Dreamtime is repeatedly referenced through the motif of the talisman, an artifact that has a face denoting the spirit of the Dreamtime. Burton sees the talisman in his dreams, and it appears as part of the court case. Lee (Gulpilil) tells Burton that he is in trouble because he does not know what dreams are any more. He is in strife because he has lost sight of the law, and his connection to spirituality and culture.

As Gulpilil has observed of himself, he is a cultural mediator: ‘I’m a true Aborigine, a true cultural man … I believe in education and people writing stories about me so everyone can learn about us’, (9) and The Last Wave exemplifies this facilitation. We are left with an insight into the Dreamtime as an irrefutable source of energy – which Weir metaphorically signifies from the film’s opening through the surreal representation of the weather. As film historian Bill Routt has observed ‘the culture is more powerful than the white man’s history’ (10), the connection to the law cannot be broken. The story told by the film underlines this, and is based on a notion of an enduring and unchanging basis for law:

Dreaming is a really big thing for Aboriginal people. In our language, Yanuwa, we call the Dreaming Yijan. The Dreamings made our Law or narnu-Yuwa. This Law is the way we live, or rules. This Law is our ceremonies, our songs, our stories; all of these things came from the Dreaming. One thing that I can tell you though is that our Law is not like European Law which is always changing – new government, new laws; but our Law cannot change, we did not make it. The Law was made by the Dreamings many, many years ago and given to our ancestors and they gave it to us. (11)

Likewise, David Gulpilil has offered it to his collaborators, and his audience, in The Last Wave .

The Melbourne International Film Festival will present a retrospective look at David Gulpilil’s onscreen career from 30 July — 16 August 2015. Find out more at the MIFF website .

1. Author not attributed, ‘Need for more ‘dreamtime’ films—actor’, The Sydney Morning Herald , Wednesday November 30, 1977, p.8.

2. David Gulpilil quoted in Gill Harbant, ‘Actor’s Search for Truth’, Herald Sun , July 25, 2012, p.14. A documentary about Gulpilil, which was suggested by the actor, was titled Gulpilil: One Red Blood (Darlene Johnson, 2002). This is a message he frequently reiterates in interviews. The film itself was intended for ‘his people’ in particular, and marks an intracultural communication with Indigenous people that has become an interest of his work and communication prevalent since the 2000s.

3. Judith M. Kass, ‘Peter Weir Interviewed by Judith M. Kass’, accessed 16/6/15 from: http://www.peterweircave.com/articles/articlei.html

5. As I have outlined previously, other directors he has engaged with in this way include Phillip Noyce and Rolf de Heer. See Lisa French ‘David Gulpilil, Aboriginal Humour, and Australian Cinema’ Studies in Australasian Cinema , Vol.8, Issue.1, April 2014, pp. 34-43. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17503175.2014.925319

6. Sue Mathews, ‘Years of Living Dangerously: The Last Wave, The Plumber, Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously’, in John C. Tibbetts (ed.), Peter Weir Interviews , University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, 2014, p.91.

7. French, p. 40.

8. Mathews, p. 91.

9. Ruth Dewsbury, ‘Gulpilil’s Dream A Homeland with a Waterbed’, The Sydney Morning Herald: Good Weekend , May 8-9, 1987, p. 10 (article runs page 8-13)

10. Bill Routt quoted in Tom O’Regan, Australian National Cinema , Routledge: London, 1996, p. 192.

11. Mussolini Harvey from Bradley 1988, pp. x-xi quoted in Graham Harvey (ed.), Indigenous Religions, A Companion , Castle: London, 2000, pp. 126-27.

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The Last Wave

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• Duration: 106 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Peter Weir
• Screenwriter: Petru Popescu, Peter Weir, Tony Morphett
• David Gulpilil
• Olivia Hamnett
• Frederick Parslow
• Vivean Gray
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The Last Wave

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1.85 :1 2160P 4K Ultra HD

Disc Size: 63,551,518,466 bytes

Feature: 43,655,507,904 bytes

Video Bitrate: 48.88 Mbps

Codec: HEVC Video

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1812 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1812 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit) Commentary:

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1861 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1861 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)

Edition Details:

4K Ultra HD disc

� NEW! Audio Commentary with Film Critic Alexei Toliopoulos and Filmmaker Travis Akbar (4K Disc only) � "Riding the Wave" - Interview with Producer Jim McElroy (38:16) � "Lighting the Cave" Director of Photography Russell Boyd (24:39) � Interview featurettes with Lead Actor Richard Chamberlain in conversation with Paul Harris (22:11) � David Gulpilil: Walkabout to Hollywood Documentary (50:55) � David Stratton on The Last Wave (3:39) � Trailers From Hell: The Last Wave with Brian Trenchard-Smith (3:39) � Image Gallery � 4K UHD Trailer (2:49)

Umbrella - Region FREE - Blu-ray

� "Riding the Wave" - Interview with Producer Jim McElroy (38:16) � "Lighting the Cave" Director of Photography Russell Boyd (24:39) � Interview featurettes with Lead Actor Richard Chamberlain in conversation with Paul Harris (22:11) � David Gulpilil: Walkabout to Hollywood Documentary (50:55) � David Stratton on The Last Wave (3:39) � Trailers From Hell: The Last Wave with Brian Trenchard-Smith (3:39) � Image Gallery

48 pages of behind-the-scenes, experiences and art Authentic Aboriginal Bunya Designs "Connected Dreams" outer rigid slipcase Custom design slipcase 8 replica lobby cards A3 reversible poster

4K Ultra HD Release Date: September 29th, 2023 Black 4K Ultra HD Case

Chapters 13

On their 4K UHD , Umbrella use a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track (24-bit) in the original English language (with some Italian + Aboriginal). The score is by Groove Myers (as Charles Wain) - one of only two film composure credits. But this is an excellent soundtrack with, often violent, nature effects (frequent rain and thunder) and (cited on the back cover of the vinyl soundtrack cover ): " tense atonal electronics, synthesizer drones and manipulated Didjeridu all perfectly capture the film�s ominous atmosphere, punctuating the slow hypnotic pace of this brooding supernatural thriller ." It sounds very atmospheric and impacting in the 24-bit lossless transfer. Umbrella offer optional English subtitles (see sample below) on their Region FREE 4K UHD and Region FREE Blu-ray .  

The 4K UHD offers a new commentary by film critic Alexei Toliopoulos and filmmaker Travis Akbar. They talks bout Weir and where the film sits in Australian and world cinema. They talk about the book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die . Travis discusses cultural appropriation, Indigenous politics at the time of the film, the film's respectful expressions, collaborative filmmaking, funding and much more. The 4K UHD disc has all the extras of the 2020 Blu-ray (commented on below) plus there is a 4K trailer. 

The Umbrella Blu-ray (a duplicate of their 2020 edition) has the multitude of supplements. These include a recent 22-minute interview with actor Richard Chamberlain in conversation with Paul Harris (remotely for the C19 lockdown) where the he tells us memories of the production and relevant, lesser-known, details. " Riding the Wave " is a 39-minute interview with Producer Jim McElroy and " Lighting the Cave " spends 25-minutes with Director of Photography Russell Boyd who shares some insights into his work on the film and Peter Weir. We also get a brief piece with critic David Stratton on The Last Wave . There is an episode of ' Trailers From Hell: The Last Wave ' with director Brian Trenchard-Smith ( Turkey Shoot ) plus a 7-minute edit from the 50-minute 1980 documentary David Gulpilil; Walkabout to Hollywood made in 1980 by Bill Leimbach. It was part of Season nine Episode eleven of The World About Us . There is a theatrical trailer and stills gallery. This extensive package has 48 pages of behind-the-scenes, experiences and art, Authentic Aboriginal Bunya Designs "Connected Dreams" outer rigid slipcase, a custom design slipcase, 8 replica lobby cards, an a reversible poster (see image below.)

  I have always enjoy watching Peter Weir's The Last Wave . There was a keen augmented feature seeing it in 4K UHD . It is such a curious, haunting, supernatural thriller and existential horror containing apocalyptic weather phenomena and mythical connections. David Burton's (Chamberlain) sedate and 'normal' family life is turned upside down by forces he logically tries to reject... until his dreams cannot be denied. Weir has filled the film with many cultural reference points and shrouded mystery throughout. It seems to evoke similar themes of Colin Eggleston's Ozploitation classic Long Weekend . - another strongly recommended Australian film. The Last Wave is really quite brilliant and I enjoyed the 1080P, lossless audio (still LOVE the spooky soundtrack) and new commentary is a bonus plus the interviews, booklet and other accouterments. World cinephiles who appreciate the film may wish to indulge in this stacked package.

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The Last Wave

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The Last Wave - Film (Movie) Plot and Review

Australia, 1977

Director: Peter Weir

Production: Ayer Productions Pty. Ltd., McElroy production, South Australian Film Corp., and the Australian Film Commision. Atlab color, 35mm; running time: 106 minutes; length: 9513 feet. Released 16 November 1977. Filmed in Australia.

Producers: Hal McElroy and James McElroy; screenplay: Tony Morphett, Petru Popescu, and Peter Weir, from an idea by Peter Weir; photography: Russell Boyd; additional photography: Ron Taylor, George Greenough and Klaus Jaritz; editor: Max Lemon; sound editor: Greg Bell; sound recordist: Don Connolly; sound rerecordist: Phil Judd; production designer: Goran Warff; art director: Neil Angwin; music: Charles Wain; special effects: Monty Fieguth and Bob Hilditch; costume designers: Annie Bleakley; adviser on tribal Aboriginal matters: Lance Bennett.

Cast: Richard Chamberlain ( David Burton ); Olivia Hammett ( Annie Burton ); Gulpilil ( Chris Lee ); Frederick Parslow ( Rev. Burton ); Nandjiwarra Amagula ( Charlie ); Vivean Gray ( Dr. Whitburn ); Walter Amagula ( Gerry Lee ); Roy Bara ( Larry ); Cedric Lalara ( Lindsey ); Morris Lalara ( Jacko ); Peter Carroll ( Michael Zeadler ); Athol Compton ( Billy Corman ); Hedley Cullen ( Judge ); Michael Duffield ( Andrew Potter ); Wallas Eaton ( Morgue doctor ); Jo England ( Babysitter ); John Frawley ( Policeman ); Jennifer de Greenlaw ( Zeadler's secretary ); Richard Henderson ( Prosecutor ); Penny Leach ( Schoolteacher ); Merv Lilley ( Publican ); John Meagher ( Morgue clerk ); Guido Rametta ( Guido ); Malcolm Robertson ( Don Fishburn ); Greg Rowe ( Carl ); Katrina Sedgwick ( Sophie Burton ); Ingrid Weir ( Grace Burton ).

Publications

Stratton, David, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival , Sydney, 1980.

Tulloch, John, Australian Cinema: Industry, Narrative, and Meaning , Sydney and London, 1982.

Peeters, Theo, Peter Weir and His Films: A Critical Biography , Melbourne, 1983.

Hall, Sandra, Critical Business: The New Australian Cinema in Review , Adelaide, 1985.

Moran, Albert and Tom O'Regan, An Australian Film Reader , Sydney, 1985.

McFarlane, Brian, Australian Cinema 1970–85 , London, 1987.

Mathews, Sue, 35mm Dreams: Conversations with Five Directors about the Australian Film Revival , Ringwood, Victoria, 1987.

Haltof, Marek, Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide , London, 1996.

Rayner, Jonathan, The Films of Peter Weir , Poole, 1998.

Bliss, Michael, Dreams Within a Dream: The Films of Peter Weir , Carbondale, 2000.

Cinema Papers (Melbourne), April 1977.

Murray, S., in Cinema Papers (Melbourne), October 1977.

Moskowitz, G., in Variety (New York), 16 November 1977.

Clancy, J., in Cinema Papers (Melbourne), January 1978.

Béhar, H., in Image et Son (Paris), February 1978.

Films and Filming (London), February 1978.

Garsault, A., in Positif (Paris), March 1978.

Tournès, A., "Naissance d'un cinéma australien," in Jeune Cinéma (Paris), March 1978.

Combs, Richard, in Sight and Sound (London), Spring 1978.

Pulleine, Tim, in Monthly Film Bulletin (London), April 1978.

Boyd, Russell, "Photographing The Last Wave ," in American Cinematographer (Los Angeles), April 1978.

Fox, J. R., in Cinefantastique (Oak Park, Illinois), no. 2–3, 1979.

Buckley, T., in New York Times , 12 January 1979.

Jacobs, D., "His Subject—Mysteries of Different Cultures," in New York Times , 13 January 1979.

Canby, Vincent, in New York Times , 21 January 1979.

Kael, Pauline, in New Yorker , 22 January 1979.

Blake, R. A., in America (New York), 27 January 1979.

Cocchi, J., in Boxoffice (Kansas City), 29 January 1979.

Holthof, M., in Film en Televisie (Brussels), March 1979.

Childs, P., "New Wave Director Peter Weir Rides The Last Wave into U.S. Market," in Millimeter (New York), March 1979.

Kass, J. M., "It Doesn't Take Any Imagination at All to Feel Awed: Peter Weir," in Movietone News (Seattle), December 1979.

Vogrinc, J., in Ekran (Ljubljana), 1982.

Masson, A., in Positif (Paris), September 1982.

Poulle, F., in "Retour au fantastique: La Dernière Vague ," in Jeune Cinéma (Paris), September 1982.

Piton, J.-P., and F. Schall, "Le cinema australien," in Revue du Cinéma (Paris), no. 386, September 1983.

Matteuzzi, F., "Peter Weir: Il mistero e il sogno," in Cinema & Cinema (Milan), no. 47, December 1986.

Giavarini, Laurence, "Horreurs australes," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), no. 447, September 1991.

Routt, W. D., "Are You a Fish? Are You a Snake?: An Obvious Lecture and Some Notes on The Last Wave, " in Continuum (Mt. Lawley), vol. 8, no. 2, 1994.

Coursodon, Jean-Pierre, and Michel Ciment, and Agnés Peck and Alain Garsault, "Peter Weir," in Positif (Paris), no. 453, November 1998.

Weir conceived the film after discovering (by precognition, he feels) a piece of statuary on a Tunisian beach. Early drafts of the script represented, in a Von Daniken-like manner, ancient races dragging rafts across the Australian desert. In collaboration with various writers, Weir shaped a story of city aboriginals protecting ritual stones brought to Australia by a long dead race. As Australia is gripped by fierce storms and an unrelenting downpour, Chamberlain finds his way to the caves where ancient wall paintings foretell the world's destruction by water. He emerges on a beach to face the ultimate reality of the prophecy.

Australian backers derided the film, and a shortage of money forced many compromises—notably in the last sequence, where Weir used a clip from the surfing film Crystal Voyager to stand in for the tidal wave. The Aztec ruins lost something in their rough and ready construction. The use of aboriginal myths led to picketing by militant black groups who charged Weir with debasing their mythology. However, Weir acknowledged that his contact with aboriginal performers led to a widening and deepening of the script. Gulpilil's appearance in a dream, the rain streaming down, with a scored sacred stone in his out-thrust hand, is particularly striking.

Weir calls The Last Wave his "roughest, most awkward" film. But despite a certain tentativeness in the use of large resources, it is significant as the first new Australian film to reveal an interest in wider issues and a less chauvinistic sensibility.

—John Baxter

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• Post published: August 5, 2019
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(director/writer: Peter Weir; screenwriters: Tony Morphett/Petru Popescu; cinematographer: Russell Boyd; editor: Max Lemon; music: Charles Wain; cast: Richard Chamberlain (David Burton), Olivia Hamnett (Annie Burton), David Gulpilil (Chris Lee), Frederick Parslow (Reverend Burton), Vivean Gray (Dr. Whitburn), Nandjiwarra Amagula (Charlie). Peter carroll (Lawyer Zeadler), Walter Amagula (Gerry), Athol Compton (Billy Corman), Ingrid Weir (Grace Burton), Katrina Sedgwick (Sophie Burton), Wallas Eaton (Morgue Doctor); Runtime: 106; Janus; 1977-Australia) “With no one to clue the viewer into this Aborigine myth, it all seemed like a fantastic exercise in counting down to Armageddon but not caring what happens to any of the people.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Peter Weir’s ( Picnic at Hanging Rock/Gallipoli/Dead Poets Society/The Year of Living Dangerously ) metaphysical thriller is a work some mistakenly think put Australian film on the map. I believe instead it was the compilation of many noteworthy films that made the world notice the quality of Aussie films, especially through directors such as Paul Cox and Jane Campion. Weir has been off and on, missing on a film more often than not. This somewhat challenging film I would rate somewhere in the above average of his opus.

The Last Wave is about a smug, well-heeled, white do-gooder lawyer, David Burton (Richard Chamberlain), who takes time out from his corporate taxation practice to take on a pro bono legal aid case to defend a group of Aborigines from a murder charge in Sydney. The mystery within the mystery surrounding the death of one of the Aborigine’s sets a moody spell, as it intones the film with a dreamlike aura and leads the story down a cloudy trail of apocalyptic proportions. If it all didn’t end up to be so patronizing and more of an obvious visionary experience a tourist would have rather than a true exploration of mysteries, I would have jumped more for its attempts to show the contrasting worlds of a glass-and-steel European civilization versus the rituals and mythos of a primitive voodoo culture.

The film opens to the rare occurrence of a hailstorm in the Australian Outback desert and freakish stormy weather in Sydney, which sets the tone for its apocalyptic theme that in the Aborigine dreams of late there’s a seeing of an impending natural disaster which will bring about the end of the world. It is about this time that David is having bad dreams that keep him awake with fright at night. His loving, idealized middle-class wife, Annie (Hamnett), comforts him in their suburban home, while his two giddy young daughters rebelliously rejoice as water flows down the carpeted stairwell from the bathtub no one opened the taps on and turns out to be something that can’t be explained rationally.

Called away from his tennis game, David agrees to take a criminal legal aid case. When he talks with the group of Aborigines who chased their victim out of a crowded seedy Irish bar and are accused of drowning him in a puddle, he senses they don’t want to tell him much about the murder of one of their own, Billy Corman. He is told by his assistant on the case, the cynical regular legal aid attorney Zeadler, that the accused are city folks and there’s no tribes in the city. The best thing he says, is plea bargain the case and get them off with a light sentence. But David believes it’s a tribal thing and not the case of a drunken brawl and he invites one of their leaders, Chris (Gulpilil), to dine at his home to see if he can get to the bottom of this. Chris brings along an older, intense, bearded man, who can stare intently at another with the best of them, Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), who is introduced as an artist but is really the voodoo magician of the tribe. He acts concerned when David divulges the troubling dreams he had and that Chris was in the dream offering him a stone with a symbolic painting on it. David will learn that they consider him an alien from the land of the rising sun who brought stones to their land in ancient times and who can also see their dreams, and they consider him to be in extreme danger because he can see things he shouldn’t. Dreams, as explained, are to the natives a way of knowing things, like seeing, hearing, and feeling — they are the shadows of something real. According to native lore they believe in two forms of time: real time and a system of perception called “the dream time,” which brings them close to reality in a spiritual sense and is the greater way of telling time.

Warning: spoiler in the paragraph.

The dreams are taken to be so real, that we learn the victim was killed by the voodoo magician pointing a bone at him just because he saw things he wasn’t supposed to.

The film has stunning visualizations of dreams, and it does a good job in the way it photographs in unusual ways the modern city skyline juxtaposed against the return of nature with a vengeance. There’s plenty of floods, thunderheads, cars submerged in water and heavy downpours to get yourself all wet on. Weir and his screenwriters Tony Morphett and Petru Popescu are saying that all the material wealth and social skills David has accumulated as a successful man in the modern world can’t help him now because he no longer has the ability to know what his dreams mean, and this leaves him in a precariously unsettled position. His middle-class life is ruffled, as he fails to stop his clients from being convicted. David also can’t communicate what he’s going through with either his fourth-generation Australian wife who never met an Aborigine before, even though the natives were in this land for the last 50,000 years, or with his comforting minister stepfather who tries to explain away the mysteries instead of exploring them. But where does this mythical tale all go except down the sewer for its finale, as the story failed to catch fire and become a moving experience. Richard Chamberlain is our tour guide into this otherworld, but he’s just a drab spectator and like the viewer spends his time gawking at the dreams pictured and at the natural disasters without seeming to know about the supernatural thing happening. With no one to clue the viewer into this Aborigine myth, it all seemed like a fantastic exercise in counting down to Armageddon but not caring what happens to any of the people.

REVIEWED ON 7/22/2002 GRADE: C +

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Belkins' co-star Taylor Kowalski ( MaXXXine, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever ) delivers a powerhouse of a performance too, playing a good opposite to Belkin and bringing an emotional depth to the Jake character that makes him one of the strongest pieces of the film.

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Sardoni toes the line perfectly between a quiet survival thriller and unhinged adrenaline through his writing. The film not only takes tonal sharp turns but also takes a big swing by switching perspectives around halfway through the film to that of the antagonist, making the movie's latter half a twisty spin on the subgenre of home invasion esc horror.

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What did you think of Last Straw ? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to share this article to spread the word.

Last Straw is now showing in select theaters and on VOD.

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