The Last Wave unsettled me with its quiet persistence. It begins as a tidy crime film, before drifting into an existential thriller pitching lawyer David Burton into Dreamtime and the Aboriginal cosmos.
The pacing is unhurried, yet jagged edits fracture time: every dripping tap or splash of water (of which there are plenty), feels like a coded warning, stretching beyond the confines of the film. Peter Weir explores the cultural collision; he never lectures. Modern reason buckles under the ancestral rhythms. Burton’s sceptical mind splinters under the apocalyptic visions. By the end, it certainly had me rattled too. The iconic finale—a wave that may either be real or revelatory—signals rupture, not ruin.
The film unfortunately overreaches in places, but the atmosphere clings to you. It fascinates as well as frustrates. Never dull, but always slightly out of reach.