The Last Wave (1977)

I was curious to see this early film by Peter Weir after attending the Tribute to him at the Telluride Film Festival. The supernatural thriller opens with with torrential rains and the first ever incidence of hail crashing down on Sydney, Australia. The theme of downpouring water continues throughout the story as lawyer, David Burton (Richard Chamberlain), begins a new case to uncover the truth about the murder of an aborigine man named Billy during a bar fight.

The tribal mysteries of the aborigine people of Australia date back 50,000 years, but Burton attempts to find some understanding. Apocalyptic visions of water and haunting dreams plague him, including one about Billy holding a symbolic stone. Burton becomes involved with aborigine witness, Chris (David Gulpilil) and his associate, Charlie (Nandjiwarru Amagula). He asks them why Billy died and is told "He sees things." Whites in Sydney commonly believe that the aborigines in the city are not tribal, but Burton begins to suspect Billy may have been killed for violating a tribal taboo.

Chris explains the importance of dreamtime, the infinite spiritual cycle that determines law. "A dream is a shadow of something real." Premonitory dreams occur at the end of a cycle prior to apocolypse and lead to rebirth. Charlie asserts that law is more important than the man. Burton's investigation leads him to discover his own connection to Mokural, a race of spirits from the rising suns that act through human beings by offering sacred objects.

His stepfather reminds him that as a child he had premonitory dreams leading up to the death of his mother and he begins to see how his recent dreams are linked to the murder. The mood of the film is grim, soggy and dark. The sounds are primal and slightly terrifying. At one point, Burton is face-to-face with Charlie asking "Who are you?" Charlie turns the question back on him over and over, humming as the energy builds. We learn that Charlie is a shape-shifter who becomes an owl. Burton becomes quite lost in a sea of secrets that reveal the world to be quite different than he once believed it to be.