The Last Wave is a 1977 Australian feature film directed by Peter Weir. It stars Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett and David Gulpilil. It is the third of director Weir’s alternative horror trilogy coming after The Cars That Ate Paris and Picnic at Hanging Rock.
A Sydney lawyer has more to worry about than higher-than-average rainfall when he is called upon to defend five Aboriginals in court. Determined to break their silence and discover the truth behind the hidden society he suspects lives in his city, the Lawyer is drawn further, and more intimately, into a prophesy that threatens a new Armageddon, wherein all the continent shall drown…
This Australian film was partially financed by an advance sale to the American major film company United Artists (UA) for rights to all English speaking territories outside of Canada and the USA. UA provided approximately half of this film’s estimated $750-810,000 (Australian) production costs which equated to approximately $350,000 (Australian). Interestingly, UA pulled out of distributing the film in the USA, passing it on to World Northal Films Corporation.
The main trailer for the film was made by director Brian Trenchard-Smith (Turkey Shoot) who is credited on this film as a Promotional Consultant.
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“You’ll never hear a rain shower in quite the same way after experiencing Peter Weir’s The Last Wave. His usual fascination with the collision between natural and constructed cultures remains prominent here, but the intrusion of the supernatural and uncanny becomes even more pronounced than Picnic.” Mondo Digital
“The whole thing is about the clash between the rational Western system and a more ancient spiritual law, with the sense that the Westerners have turned away from the spirits, and nature, and will soon be facing the consequences of their narrow worldview.” Cinema de Merde
