The Last Wave

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The Last Wave
Original Movie Poster
Directed by	Peter Weir
Produced by	Hal McElroy Jim McElroy
Written by	Peter Weir Tony Morphett Petru Popescu
Starring	Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil, Frederick Parslow
Music by	Charles Wain
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Editing by	Max Lemon
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	December 13, 1977 December 19, 1978
Running time	106 mins
Language	English
Budget	AU$818,000 (US$618,000)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

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

1 Plot
2 Production
3 Tagline
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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 Aboriginals accused of murdering one of their group. The lawyer begins to suspect these are tribal Aboriginals 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 shot of the lawyer collapsing in despair.

[edit] 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?”