After losing and re-finding my notes, here is another review of one of the films I saw at this year's New Zealand International Film Festival. I wish it could be more in-depth, but it has been awhile since my screening. Consider this a preamble to a longer piece sometime in the near future.
After a white lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) becomes defence counsel for a group of indigenous men who have been accused of murder, he finds himself drawn into . As his investigation progresses, strange weather events are taking place all over Australia...
Directed by Peter Weir, The Last Wave is a fascinating movie. I want to put out this review almost as a teaser for when I am able to take in a few more viewings, and read more around the film.
Released in the late 70s, The Last Wave feels like an Aussie take on the pessimism of the Western world in the Seventies - post-Dissmissal; post-fuel crisis, wrestling with its colonial past (or not).
Generically, it feels like a more elliptical take on a disaster movie, but is it a disaster signalling the end times, or a transition?
It also feels like Peter Weir's vague concession to the Ozloitation movies of the era, but despite the presence of an American star, and has some iconography which might be associated with horror, The Last Wave cannot be boxed in to a specific sub-genre.
While the movie utilises the idea of Indigenous people as mysterious figures associated with elemental forces, the movie is more interested in holding a mirror up to the white characters' perspectives.
As the film progresses that mystery is rebounded on the white characters, to reveal their ignorance and racism. It is a complicated but more nuanced POV than the generic ‘magical Person Of Colour’ - it is not unproblematic but The Last Wave is more interesting for the way it portrays past and contemporary white Australians.
And rather than being a white saviour, Richard Chamberlain’s central character comes across as an unknowing portent of doom.
I have really only touched the surface with this one - I am keen to revisit the movie, and check out any scholarship around it.
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