波顿是一个律师,他受人委托为一起土著谋杀案担任法律援助律师,他隐约觉得这起死亡案件蹊跷,可是,就像不停的雨一样他看不清事物的状态。在导演的影像里土著代表着原始神秘主义,部落对于城市现代化而言犹如书中对土著的介绍:久远而不知。
部落文化对于殖民的欧洲人而言是无法介入的原始,他们有着自己的处理问题方式和惩戒规则,这是一个独立的体系,有着远古的回声。然而白人的体系代表着欧洲的文明,这种优越感让他们总是将土著当成蒙昧而愚蠢的。白人希望教化他们却导致了更多的对立,他们无法沟通是因为历史和文化背景的不同。
在波顿处理这个案子的时候,一个在他梦境里出现的土著克里斯在现实里出现了,预感?还是诡秘,波顿的判定迷失了。为了了解土著他让克里斯去他家吃饭。克里斯带来了巫师查理,查理告诉波顿他前景不妙,将信将疑的波顿陷入了恍惚,恶梦却挥之不去,一些和梦境有关的物件在现实里出现。认定自己是文明人的他渴望战胜查理的巫术。
Title: The Last Wave
Year: 1977
Country: Australia
Language: English, Italian, Aboriginal
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Director: Peter Weir
Screenwriters: Peter Weir, Tony Morphett, Petru Popescu
Music: Groove Myers
Cinematography: Russell Boyd
Editing: Max Lemon
Cast:
Richard Chamberlain
Olivia Hamnett
David Gulpilil
Nandjiwarra Amagula
Peter Carroll
Frederick Parslow
Vivean Gray
Wallas Eaton
Hedley Cullen
Rating: 7.0/10
There is a telling moment in Peter Weir’s third feature THE LAST WAVE, when Anne (Hamnett) descries Charlie (Amagula) standing and regarding outside her home, her knee-jerk reaction is to freak out, ordering her two young daughters to go upstairs and hide. Does that feel strange? Charlie was in her house as a dinner guest (albeit uninvited) the day before, and apparently the dinner went well if the atmosphere wasn’t particularly chummy. So even before sussing out Charlie’s motive, Anne is overpowered by mortal fear simply on account of his appearance, and why it that? I forget to mention, Anne is a Caucasian woman and Charlie is an Aborigine, so the answer is self-evident.
Oscillating between white man’s burden and the conscientious guilt of barbaric colonization, for any white filmmaker, to contend with a racially sensitive story is a double-edged task. Among the Antipodean cinema, only the recent Jennifer Kent’s THE NIGHTINGALE (2018) manages to find a felicitous formulation with a more revolutionary angle. THE LAST WAVE is made in 1977, so we couldn’t expect Weir to be too progressive in his perspective, and in fact, like PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), he is more inclined to unpick the mysticism as a way to venerate the Aborigine’s immemorial legacy and culture.
Audience’s proxy is a Sydney-based white lawyer David Burton (Chamberlain), Anne’s husband, who is inexplicably embroiled in a manslaughter case of a city Aborigine, which is not even his field, he specializes in corporate taxation. But, he is the “chosen” one because of his psychic ability of experiencing “dreamtime”, a concept believed by the tribal Aborigines, and which Weir and his co-scribes dumb down as “David has the power of foreseeing futurity in his dreams”. Aided by one of the more forthcoming aboriginal offenders, Chris (Gulpilil), David is bent on finding out why he is “special” and arouses the vigilance from the tribal shaman, the said Charlie. But eventually, in lieu of fabricating some tenuous connexion between David and the tribe, Weir chooses a more metaphysical solution, the titular apocalyptic wave that threatens to send off the entire humanity. However, it is less a cop-out than an artistic license, as the script is a cul-de-sac, there is no place for a white-bread man here.
Aurally and visually, THE LAST WAVE continues Weir’s striking applications of dissonant foley effects and meteorological special effects, like the hailstones that opens the film, or the scene of a horrific underwater premonition.
Chamberlain is a dedicative and charismatic leading man even the story short-changes his character, once his lean, handsome four-squareness is encroached by monomania, twinges of torment and despair are visualized in his face, David’s quest for the truth can retrospectively and all too easily, be read as a queer Chamberlain’s seeking out an answer of why he is not like others, and the answer is an overwhelming elemental force.
In the supporting roles, Hamnett is worth her salts as a perturbed wife, but a young Gulpilil really lights up the screen, asserts himself with effortless civility and dignity, but also excellently registers Chris’ inner turmoil when he apparently betrays his tribe, should he have been elected as our main focal point, the movie would have been a more tub-thumping curio for today’s audience.
referential entries: Weir’s WITNESS (1985, 7.1/10), PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975, 8.9/10); Fred Schepisi’s A CRY IN THE DARK (1988, 6.9/10); Jennifer Kent’s THE NIGHTINGALE (2018, 8.3/10).
现实,梦境,土著,文明,交织缠绵在一起
水的象徵可塑性。用一種看起來很類型、很具象,卻又裝得神秘兮兮的方式,展開自我認同的探索,可惜對「正義」白人律師及「恐怖」原住民的再現仍落入窠臼,豈不有點自我矛盾…
澳大利亚的神秘主义,一桩真相飘忽的凶杀案件。彼得·威尔是营造悬疑、恐怖氛围的高手,一座现代化城市中,他不仅能够找到真正的土著,还用了真正的神秘遗迹,更以城市中被隐藏的空间构造了神秘通道。
7.8/10。白人男主由于为一原住民被杀案件做律师而卷入了各种难以捉摸的诡秘风波/血案。关键词包括原住民与白人殖民者间的隔阂/矛盾。本片有表意有力(且很有神秘主义氛围)的高水平摄影美术,但作为传统故事片本片叙事节奏很慢(虽然这种慢也增强了神秘的氛围(同质于《扎马》)),扣1分。
神秘主义,土著问题,没看太明白
好片。顶顶好的电影。澳大利亚电影对民俗的欲说换休真的绝了。
7.9 水为贯穿全片的意象。末日图景的美丽,如果进入了便会深陷其中。神秘、缓慢、晦涩却足够闷死一堆人。
9/10
又是一个末日预言,这次将玛雅文化和澳洲土著联系到了一起,澳洲土著成了某个玛雅预言的守护者,张伯伦扮演的这个角色出生在南美生活在澳洲成为连接两种文化的重要枢纽。或许也可以把他看做是一部另类的环保电影,白人们侵占了土著的世界,破坏了他们的文明,破坏了生态平衡。。。
骚闷,十分不提气
太隐晦难懂了,这就是文化差异啊!
没看懂。
和《悬崖上的野餐》一样,也是一部原始神秘主义电影,澳大利亚这块神秘的大陆太过吸引彼得·韦尔了,这样的题材还不知道有多少。如果这种神秘力量真的存在的话,电影恐怖要成为一些人的顶礼膜拜的对象了。
02.11.2009 电影课之【原始神秘主义,宗教迷信科学】。大导Peter Weir早期艺术作品。各种符号,梦境,土著文明,非常神秘诡异甚至些许晦涩同时又非常吸引人。值得一看。
节奏拖沓 情节混乱 不明白为什么被选入CC
男主角曾经演过《荆棘鸟》,样貌不俗,还真以为他生长在澳洲,一看资料,是个加州土著。那这份澳洲气质还真是难得。人类有太多未解之谜,现在的科学水平无法解释。
除了神秘主义那一套外,还有一层心理精神分析可以解释男主的执拗。
也许时间起浪,穿越过梦境化雨倾泻,那之前我在何处?也许身土成洞,塌陷了生路如墓掩埋,在最后问你是谁?3.5
謀殺,神秘,懸念,驚悚…雨、水、浪還有土著人……
彼得·威尔对于神秘主义的爱好继续加深,水、梦境、创世和灭世、异文化的土著人、图腾和禁忌,都是极度符合这种倾向的元素。