Continuing my exploration of Australian cinema, I come next to director Peter Weir. Though Weir is now thoroughly entrenched as a Hollywood filmmaker, he got his start down under.

Historical Background: Peter Lindsay Weir was born on August 8th, 1944, in Sydney, Australia. He enrolled in the University of Sydney, but quit school to work in his father's business and then travel a bit through Europe. Returning home, he took a job with the Commonwealth Film Unit in Australia as a cameraman and in the production department. His first directorial effort was Three to Go (1970), but he made his first real mark with his second film, The Cars That Ate Paris (1975). Through these films and his subsequent ones, he began to establish himself as a director with a penchant for haunting, atmospheric mood pieces. He had further success, later in 1975, with Picnic at Hanging Rock, a rather disturbing drama. He followed that with the present film, The Last Wave (1977). The Plumber (1980) was a made for television film, but received theatrical release outside of Australia. His next entirely theatrical film was Gallipoli (1981), a drama about Australian soldiers fighting in World War I. Weir's films often feature clashes of cultures and that theme was continued in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, and Witness (1984), starring Harrison Ford. Witness was Weir's first Hollywood film. With these films, Weir established himself as a front line director who could handle large budgets and finicky stars. From there, Weir turned to The Mosquito Coast (1986), Dead Poets Society (1989), Green Card (1990), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). The rap on Weir, especially in relation to his early films, is that the endings of his films are often weak, inconclusive, and unsatisfying for viewers.

The Story: The film opens with a mixed-race group of school children, somewhere in the outback, playing outside a schoolhouse during recess. The children hear loud claps of thunder, despite the skies being entirely cloud-free, and soon a violent downpour begins. The children are quickly herded inside and soon large baseball-sized hailstones are pelting the roof of the schoolhouse. It is November, which in Australia would be late spring, and hail has never previously occurred in this particular locale. Meanwhile, in downtown Sydney, the weather is also freaky, with day after day of torrential rains. The weathermen provide their feeble scientific explanations, but viewers know better – this being a Peter Weir film.

Meanwhile, somewhere in or around Sydney, Billy Corman (Athol Compton), a city dwelling Aborigine, is up to no good, surreptitiously traipsing through the conduits of the city's sewerage disposal plant, carrying what look to be stolen artifacts. He is pursued by five Aborigine men and cornered in a neighborhood bar. A scuffle ensues, but Corman escapes with his five fellow Aborigines still in pursuit. Corman comes upon a parked car in which is seated the Aborigine shaman, Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), an elderly bearded man with fierce eyes. Corman is now trapped between the shaman and his five pursuers. Charlie points a death bone at the hapless Corman and Corman obligingly drops dead on the spot. Later, the five men who had pursued Corman, Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), Gerry Lee (Walter Amagula), Larry (Roy Bara), Lindsey (Cedrick Lalara), and Jacko (Morris Lalara) are arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. The Morgue Doctor (Wallas Eaton) declares the cause of death to be drowning, since Corman fell into a puddle and water was found in his lungs.

David Burton (Richard Chamberlain), a liberal-minded corporate tax lawyer, is having trouble sleeping at night, plagued as he is with bad dreams. In these nightmares, David sees an Aborigine man handing him a stone with a design on it. Other times, his nightmares feature water prominently, though they are not, specifically, "wet dreams." David and his family also experience some inexplicable events around their household, such as the bathtub overflowing, despite none of them owning up to leaving the tap running. Despite these problems on the home front, David cheerfully agrees to do his share for the local legal aid office by agreeing to defend the five Aborigines accused of murdering Corman. At the first meeting with the men, only four show up and none of those four seem willing to discuss what happened the night of Corman's death. They are obviously withholding information, though Burton cannot imagine what that might be.

David struggles to find an appropriate legal defense for his clients. Under Australian law, Aborigines who are "tribal" (still belong to a tribe) are governed by tribal law and are not subject to the laws of the white man. The problem, however, is that only those Aborigines living in remote parts of the outback are still tribal, or so it is widely believed. The Aborigines in and around Sydney are supposedly no different in their relationship to Australian society than are the poor whites. David suspects, however, that whatever the defendants are withholding may be somehow related to secrets governed by tribal law. David's speculation is bolstered when the fifth defendant, Chris Lee, shows up for the second meeting with the legal team. David immediately recognizes him as the Aborigine who had appeared in his dreams.

David invites Chris home for dinner, much to the chagrin of David's fourth-generation Australian wife, Annie (Olivia Hamnett), who has never seen an Aborigine, but much to the amusement of his children, Sophie (Katrina Sedgwick) and Grace (Ingrid Weir). Charlie, the shaman, accompanies Chris as an unexpected guest. Charlie is very curious about David's ancestors and his dreams. Charlie suspects that David may be descended from an ancient tribe from the land of the sunrise (South America) that brought to Australia the artifacts that are now part of the tribal secrets of the Aborigines. Charlie also suspects that David may be tapping into tribal secrets, however unintentionally, in his dreams. Later, Chris confides to David that he believes that David might be "Mulkurul" but also warns him, ominously, "You're dreaming about secrets. It is death to know them."

Later, David goes to the police station to examine the personal effects of the deceased, Billy Corman, and discovers the very stone, with a painted design on its face, that he had seen in his dreams. He has it photographed and takes the picture to Dr. Whitburn (Vivean Gray), an expert on Aborigine culture and myths. She immediately recognizes the design as "The Spirit of Dreamtime." She then explains, "Aborigines believe in two forms of time – two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity to which you and I are confined. The other is an infinite spiritual cycle called 'The Dreamtime,' more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in Dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of Aboriginal society. Some people of unusual spiritual powers have contact with Dreamtime." In response to David's further queries, Dr. Whitburn goes on to explain that the method of contact for the exceptionally spiritual people with Dreamtime is through their dreams or through ceremonies involving objects like stones. She adds that contacts with Dreamtime become more pronounced at the beginning and end of natural cycles and that each cycle ends in some kind of apocalypse, which is usually a natural disaster like an earthquake or a flood.

All of this makes perfect sense to David, since he has his own dream experiences to corroborate, seemingly, what the Aborigine's believe. Then, more incongruous events occur which seemingly demand irrational explanations. Suddenly, it begins to rain oil. Later, water spurts from David's car radio. On another occasion, a plethora of frogs suddenly overrun David's backyard. Later, Annie spots Charlie hanging around outside their home. Annie is sufficiently perturbed that she opts to remove the children and herself from Sydney until the murder trial is over. The trial consumes no more than about five minutes of the film. David seems to be making progress toward an acquittal, with Chris on the witness stand testifying under oath, but suddenly Chris clams up, at the key moment, and David's case falls apart.

After the trial, Chris decides to take David to the tribe's secret cavern, believing Chris to be some kind of second coming of the Mulkurul, who originally brought the artifacts to Australia. The journey initially proceeds through the same sewerage-processing conduits traveled by Corman near the film's beginning. That leads ultimately to an ancient underground chamber, stone stairs, and a secret inner sanctum. There, David finds drawings that seemingly foretell all of the recent bizarre events as well as one yet to transpire: a giant wave. There's also a mask identical in its physiognomy to David's own face. Charlie, who has such supernatural powers as the ability to transform himself into an owl or to materialize or dematerialize in different places, suddenly shows up in the tribal sanctum and he and David get into a brief scuffle, most of which transpires out of the viewer's line of vision. David emerges, however, and hurriedly exits from the cavern, carrying some kind of club and the mask of himself. The return route is a struggle for David. He drops the club at one difficult spot and the mask at another, so when he finally emerges through a sewerage drainpipe onto a beach, he is empty handed and in a bit of a frenzy. He crawls his way to the shallow waters by the shoreline, rinses his face, and looks up. Then, David sees, imagines, or hallucinates, in the distance, a monstrous tidal wave bearing down on the Australian continent.

Themes: The film's theme, basically, is that civilized white men don't have the foggiest idea what's really important. We are misdirected not only by our science but even our religions from appreciating the deeper spiritual truths of the universe. The Aborigines, by contrast, have mystical insights and powers that are beyond the comprehension of civilized men and women, except, perhaps, for an isolated man of exceptional spiritual capacity, like David. By this logic, dreams, hallucinations, and Aborigine occult practices are gateways to the spiritual world, which is far more real than the ordinary world of sensory perception and behavioral activity. David accuses his stepfather, a minister, of having tried to explain away the mysteries rather than exploring them. "Why didn't you tell me there were mysteries?" he asks. The cool thing about this occult theme, if you buy it, is that, if you ever end up in a nuthouse, you'll have plenty to talk about with your fellow inmates.

The subsidiary theme is one of Weir's favorites: the clash of cultures. Whatever you may think of the voodoo kind of thinking of the Aborigines (at purported by this film), clearly it is in conflict, as a perspective on life, with the ways of thinking inherent in Western civilization. Is it fair and just to apply a legal system, which is based on occidental assumptions, to people operating from an entirely different worldview?

Production Values: The script for this metaphysical thriller was written by Weir along with Tony Morphett and Peter Popescu. It certainly ranks among the worst film scripts I've encountered in the last couple of years of film viewing. The script lacks focus and direction. It's as if the authors decided to take every superstition or occult symbol they could think of, throw them up against a wet wall, and see what might stick. There's no credible point made and no follow through. The film's ending provides no closure or clarity. It may be that Weir was striving for an intriguing kind of ambiguity or some sense of open-endedness that would justify calling the film "provocative," but instead it just ends up being an empty experience. There's just no payoff in the anticlimactic ending. I don't honestly believe, however, that the film was salvageable, at that point, by any ending the writers could have devised. There are times, in the film, when Weir's ability to create a spooky, atmospheric kind of mood is evident. One can see potential in the director's work, here, but taken on its own, this film really has nothing worthwhile to offer.

The cinematography for the film was pretty ordinary. Clearly, a lot of time went into creating the "supernatural" events, but there was nothing especially spectacular about the special effects, either. The soundtrack, which used spooky kinds of non-melodic sound effects, was appropriate.

Richard Chamberlain's performance was the highlight of the film, from my viewpoint. I'm amazed, frankly, that he could put such a professional effort into the role, considering the general pointlessness of the movie. He manages a perfect balance between credulity and incredulity, accepting the "evidence" of occult experiences neither too readily nor with excessive resistance. Chamberlain's other film appearances included Petulia (1968), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), and The Four Musketeers (1974).

I also very much enjoyed seeing David Gulpilil again, at a more advanced age, having very much treasured his performance as an adolescent in Walkabout (1971). He later appeared in "Crocodile" Dundee (1986) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002). He was as effective as the part here allowed. Some of the lines he was required to deliver were so absurd that I actually felt sorry for the guy. Nandjiwarra Armagula, who was a tribal magistrate for an Aborigine community in real life, agreed to allow the participation of the Aborigine actors only after he was assured that Weir would strive for cultural authenticity. One wonders if Weir kept his promise.

Bottom-Line: The DVD extras include an interview with Peter Weir, the theatrical trailer, and optional English subtitles. I don't especially like this kind of film but, more to the point, I don't care much for this particular example of its kind of film either. Thematically, this film is simply preaching irrationality as a preferred mode of thought, though not convincingly. Then, as entertainment, this movie basically dissolves away to nothing in its own pretensions.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older