The Last Wave

Peter Weir followed Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) with The Last Wave (1977). Another exploration of modern society's clash with the supernatural, it falls short of his previous effort.

Several Aborigines in Sydney kill another for violating tribal law. Lawyer David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) takes their case but is frustrated by their refusal to cooperate. Australia is wracked by unusual storms while David has repeated visions of Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), an Aborigine associate of the killers. After meeting Chris and his mysterious associate Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), David grows convinced that the strange events portend apocalypse.

Where Hanging Rock was opaquely spiritual, The Last Wave provides overt mysticism. Weir inundates Australia with apocalyptic weather: hail from a cloudless sky, rains of frogs and oil. These phenomena will be familiar to Charles Fort fans but might have earthly explanations. Less explicable are David's fugue visions of watery death and mental bond with Chris Lee. David seems to have tapped into a primal super-conscious, the Aborigine Dreamtime that places humans on an entirely different spiritual level.

Weir plays up this culture clash, carefully paralleling white and Aboriginal cultures. Where Aborigines see the strange weather as otherworldly portents, a radio weatherman provides meteorological rationales. Both Aborigine and white culture place reverential emphasis on their legal systems and religions. Still, the film ultimately sides with the former: most pointedly, David envisions his radio leaking water during a forecast. The ending in Sydney's sewers removes all doubt.

Why isn't The Last Wave as effective as Hanging Rock? Partly because of its certainty: placing undeniable anomalies in a realistic setting seems a cheat. But there are several story flaws too. Weir unceremoniously drops the killers' fate after a quick trial. He also complicates David's quest with a nagging family; what hoarier device exists than a wife (Olivia Hamnett) who doesn't understand our noble hero? David's showdown with an underground shaman proves laughable. And after earlier visions the last scene isn't as striking as it should be.

Richard Chamberlain channels his limited range into studied, anguished intensity. David Gulpilli seems the ubiquitous screen Aborigine, from Walkabout through The Proposition and Australia. He's thoroughly charming here. More striking still is Nandjiwarra Amagula, a real-life tribal elder who provides mystical menace. Supporting roles go to Olivia Hamnett, Vivean Gray, Frederick Parslow, and Peter Carroll.

The Last Wave is an interesting but flawed film. Despite its intriguing premise and striking imagery, it never comes together like it should.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

"Waiting a million years, just for us."

Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is a truly strange movie. Maddeningly opaque by design, this adaptation of Joan Lindsey's novel frustrates all efforts at categorization. Weir employs sumptuous artistry at the service of an unsolvable riddle.

On Valentine's Day 1900, the girls of Appleyard College in Woodend, Australia lunch at Hanging Rock. Three girls vanish without trace, along with teacher Ms. McCraw (Vivean Gray). The mystery turns Woodend upside down: Police Sergeant Bumpher (Wyn Roberts) fends off frenzied reporters and irate townspeople. Visiting Englishman Michael (Dominic Hubert) and valet Bertie (John Jarratt) obsessively comb the Rock for evidence. Headmistress Ms. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) seems most concerned with Sara (Margaret Nelson), a foundling obsessed with missing Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert). One girl's reappearance only complicates things.

Australian films seem preoccupied with contrasting the country's Western culture and primeval landscape. Confronting white Australians with Aborigines is a common device, establishing clear racial and spiritual conflicts. Weir himself explored these themes in The Last Wave (1977), but provides a more abstract opposition in Hanging Rock. Civilization isn't opposed by fellow humans but Australia itself: a land of physical beauty and dark secrets.

Weir nails both aspects. Australia's never looked lovelier, with Russell Boyd's photography striking a pantheist tone. He mixes gorgeous scenery with copious fauna: hungry ants, curious koalas, croaking birds and frilled lizards crowd the frame, even a "moving" plant. The Rock itself seems alive, with face-like cliffs peering intently at the girls. Bruce Smeaton's score mixes Gheorghe Zamfir's dreamy panpipes with Mozart and Men of Harlech, musically highlighting the culture clash.

These aesthetics conceal an unsettling edge. Weir and writer Cliff Green sprinkle portents throughout early scenes: Miranda casually tells Sara she "won't be here much longer." Ms. McCraw muses over Hanging Rock's formation a million years ago, "quite young geologically speaking." Every character's watch stops upon arrival at the Rock. The girls utter profundities as they near the peak, seemingly entranced. Natural portents grow more sinister: Edith (Chrstine Schuler) reports an ominous "red cloud," flies engulf a police bloodhound, Michael repeatedly encounters a telltale swan.

This invests the show with supernatural qualities, its story existing on an abnormal temporal plane. Weir doesn't completely rule out conventional explanations (abduction? murder? accident?) but without hard evidence they seem unconvincing. The girls apparently stumble on some primal secret: perhaps a higher consciousness like Aborigine Dreamtime? Lindsey later published an explanatory epilogue, The Secret of Hanging Rock, which only makes things stranger.

The story's key event resembles A Passage to India, another colonial tale focusing on a cliff-side mystery. Like Adela Quested, the Appleyard girls explosively mix nature with repressed sexuality. Dressed in virginal white, they recite love sonnets and dance joyfully about the rock. Even Ms. McCraw removes her corset before disappearing. Loveless Sara worships Miranda, a mystical girl who similarly enraptures Michael. Mrs. Appleyard goes mad from her own repression (shades of Black Narcissus?). The only healthy sexuality comes from Appleyard's servants (Tony Llewelyn-Jones and Jacki Weaver).

Frankly, Hanging Rock's central mystery isn't so alienating as its structure. Weir touches on many themes (the media circus surrounding Bumpher's investigation, Appleyard's school falling into disrepute) but leaves them as brief sketches, details in a mosaic. The plot is elliptical at best, the characters enigmatic. Rock lacks a figure like Forster's Mrs. Moore, observing "passing figures in a Godless universe" with studied objectivity. Everyone grows absorbed in the mystery, their psyches warped by sheer incomprehension.

Rachel Roberts plays against type as a frighteningly repressed, tormented governess. At first she seems merely cruel, but later scenes reveal her insecurity and anguish. Anne-Louise Lambert makes a striking Miranda: with Boyd's angelic lighting she truly is a "Botticelli Angel." Margaret Nelson's Sara is mostly meaningful glances and tragic gestures. John Jarratt's earthy Bertie ("I say the crude things; you just think them") proves the most likeable character next to Helen Morse's French nanny.

Picnic at Hanging Rock proves uniquely absorbing. Through its sumptuous visuals and eerie conceit, it ultimately depicts human fear of the unknown. Given the evidence presented though, maybe it's better that we don't know what happened.

Gallipoli

Gallipoli (1981) is a superlative war film. Director Peter Weir moves from the bizarre atmospherics of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) to a moving tale of World War I's most disastrous campaign - the Anglo-French invasion of Gallipoli, Turkey.

Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) is an aspiring runner trapped on a farm in the wilds of West Australia. World War I breaks out and Archy feels compelled to enlist, despite the protests of his Uncle (Bill Kerr), who feels the war doesn't concern Australia. At an athletic event, Archy meets Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), a ne'er-do-well fellow sprinter, and the two trek to Perth to join the Lighthorse Regiment. After training in Egypt, they're sent to join the Allied landing at Gallipoli, aimed at knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Archy and Frank find themselves front and center for a desperate attack against well-entrenched Turkish troops at Anzac Cove.

Gallipoli stands at the forefront of Australian heritage films from the '80s, emphasizing their heroic role in Britain's imperial conflicts. It lacks the anger of the previous year's Breaker Morant but has the same message: Australian lives are wasted by callous British generals. A mixture of miscommunication (a telephone line with the Lighthorse Colonel (John Morris) fails during the battle) and pig-headedness causes of the carnage, killing thousands for no appreciable gain. The battles are brief but extremely harrowing: the first two waves in the final attack are mowed down literally in seconds by Turkish machine gun fire. The gut-wrenching finale rivals All Quiet on the Western Front as a potent anti-war statement.

However, Gallipoli keeps sermonizing in the background and focuses on its characters. Both protagonists are strongly sketched: Archy idealistically serving his country and naively trusting imperial propaganda ("We fight them there so they won't come over here!"), Frank a likeable scoundrel more interested in chasing girls than war. Their early scenes in Australia are endearing, their reunion in Egypt poignant and their fate in Turkey shocking. As a representation of a generation of Aussies, forging a national identity through wartime sacrifice, they're compelling and believable.

Weir manages an impressive production on a relatively tight budget. The film transitions from character drama to war film with ease, matching the scenic beauty of the South Australian desert and Egyptian pyramids with an impressive recreation of the Dardanelles trenches. The battle scenes are horrifying, but the most creative sequence involves soldiers dodging shrapnel while swimming nude at the beach. A synth-heavy score by Brian May and Jean-Michel Jarre strikes a false note, however.

Mel Gibson had already made a splash in Mad Max two years prior, but this film catapulted him to superstardom. Gibson's full of raw charisma, perfectly suited for his roguish character, but never hogs the spotlight. Mark Lee gives a fine performance, likeable and believably idealistic. Bill Kerr (as Archy's Uncle) and Bill Hunter (as a sympathetic Major) give strong supporting turns.

A seminal work in Australian cinema, Gallipoli is an excellent take on World War I, Australia's emerging national identity and wartime friendship and loss. Other Aussie films (The Light Horsemen, Anzacs) touch on these themes, but never to such strong effect.