alr

The Last Wave

Screening on Film
Directed by Peter Weir.
With Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil.
Australia, 1977, 35mm, color, 106 min.
Print source: HFA

O is for Oracles

A corporate lawyer defending a group of Aborigine men accused of murder embarks on a search for the answer to a cryptic prophecy. Meanwhile, the rains that are pouring in Sydney are attributed to an Antarctic cold front but eventually lead to an apocalyptic resolution. In a curious response to the disaster-film genre of the 1970s, director Weir uses a minimum of special effects, choosing instead to present a world caught between reality and fantasy. Echoing the lawyer’s uncertainty in his pursuit, Weir’s focus on the inexplicable reflects what is perhaps an unbridgeable gap between modern society and ancestral myths.

Part of film series

Read more

Cinema A–Z: Treasures from the Harvard Film Archive

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Cold Heart is More Precious than Diamonds. The Cinema of Graham Greene

Read more

João César Monteiro, Poet-Provocateur

Read more

Marathon '77 All-Night Movie Marathon

Read more

Marie Antoinette and Friends, Three Films by Sofia Coppola

Read more

Nostalgia, A Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque Program

Read more

The Adventures of Lotte Reiniger

Read more

The Human Condition

Read more

Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema, 1945 – 1960

Read more

Visions of a City, Or A Weekend in San Francisco