Peter Weir takes a naturalistic approach to Aboriginal mysticism and world cataclysm in THE LAST WAVE, on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment.

In the middle of a boiling November, a torrential storm in a cloudless sky rains snowball-sized hail on the outback town of Milawee, and the attributed sudden widespread low-pressure drop extends to Sydney where America-raised tax attorney David Burton (Richard Chamberlain, THE TOWERING INFERNO) has started experiencing vivid nightmares. Taking on the defense of five city Aboriginal men for the apparent accidental murder of one of their own Billy Corman (Athol Compton) in a drunken fight, David is disturbed to have dreamed about one of the men, Chris Lee (David Gulpilil, WALKABOUT) before meeting him, and Aboriginal elder Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula) takes a sinister interest in him upon learning that he was born in South America. David is puzzled why Chris will not reveal the circumstances of Billy's mysterious death, even to the detriment of his own defense. As David's nightmares become more vivid – not unlike the nightmares that plagued him as a child as related to him by his stepfather (Frederick Parslow, ALVIN PURPLE) – he starts to suspect that Chris is holding something back from him and learns of faraway gods who act through humans and experience prophetic dreams around the time that the Earth renews its cycle, usually in the form of a world cataclysm.

Whereas Peter Weir's previous hit PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK eschewed any kind of interpretation to its mysterious events, THE LAST WAVE approaches Aboriginal mysticism in a modern setting. David's defense of Chris, his brother, and their friends hinges upon letting their crime be addressed by tribal laws even though the popular belief is that the city Aboriginals "are no different culturally from depressed whites," and both the Aboriginals and the white attorneys who have worked regularly with them seem to interpret his "romantic notions" as a "middle-class patronizing attitude." The question of who killed Billy or even how he died is of importance to the justice system but David starts to realize that the why is what is crucial, both in determining why Chris will not offer up a defense beyond what the police have surmised ("Too much drink") and in establishing that there are Aboriginal tribes in the city and that the defendants should be subject to tribal law. Some viewers might take issue with a white character having a mystic connection to Aboriginal gods – somehow happening to be born in South America ties David to the tribal societies of that land who may have had contact eons ago with Aboriginals when the Earth was one supercontinent – but one could also interpret David's visions of a coming apocalypse in more psychological terms as his world is shaken up to the point that he no longer knows "what dreams are anymore." While the film anticipates later more overtly horrific clashes between Aboriginal past and Australia's present in films like THE DREAMING and KADAICHA (released stateside as STONES OF DEATH), a more fitting companion piece would be the more recent American film TAKE SHELTER in which a middle-aged man's increasingly apocalyptic dreams (which also feature water imagery) might either be prophetic or symptomatic of late onset hereditary schizophrenia; and the work of Olivia Hamnet (CODA) as David's wife cannot be dismissed as she tries desperately to keep him grounded, which we learn was difficult even before as he tended to get lost in his work. Weir would subsequently helm the TV horror movie THE PLUMBER and then the larger Australia-lensed productions GALLIPOLI and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY before moving to Hollywood with WITNESS.

Released theatrically by internationally by United Artists, THE LAST WAVE was handled stateside by smaller distributor World Northal (STRANGE BEHAVIOR) and released to VHS first by Warner Bros. and then by Rhino Home Video (who also released Lucio Fulci's THE BLACK CAT which had been distributed by World Northal) before the film got deserving attention on DVD from The Criterion Collection in 2001 whose now-dated HD master was the source for Germany's 2012 Blu-ray. Although Umbrella Entertainment's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a newer master and is a substantial improvement over earlier editions, it still seems problematic. Whereas PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK had a bright and crisp look that has looked stunning on DVD and Blu-ray even going back to the non-anamorphic Criterion issue, THE LAST WAVE was shot in darker environs with more naturalistic lighting, and the newer transfer has a similarly contrasty look as their remaster of RAZORBACK but some of the darker scenes are almost impenetrable with some heavy grain and compression artifacts hard to distinguish in the blacks of the cave sequence in which cinematographer Russell Boyd employed a lot of backlighting and rim-lighting. It is otherwise an improvement over the DVD but another distributor may either have to regrade the raw scan or do another scan altogether (Criterion still have streaming rights and an HD master, so an American Blu-ray may be announced at some point). Although Criterion's DVD featured a 5.1 remix like their edition of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK – subsequent releases of which the 5.1 track has been the standard – THE LAST WAVE's Blu-ray features only the original mono mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0; however, the original mix is perfectly suitable whether it comes to dialogue, unnerving effects, or the Tangerine Dream-esque score. Optional English HoH subtitles are included.

The disc features In "Riding the Wave" (38:16) is an interview with producer Jim McElroy recalls how Weir's THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS was too esoteric to be a hit while PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK was a massive surprise success that made THE LAST WAVE possible. He mentions being wary of entering dangerous territory but that Weir had solid ideas about the film while also noting that Gulpilil and Amagula (an actual tribal leader) felt the pressure of representing their people on film. He also discusses the importance of Boyd's contribution and that of composer Charles Wain. In "Lighting the Cave" (24:39), cinematographer Boyd discusses the ways in which the film differed from PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, consulting Weir's research as well as that of the art department, his lighting scheme for the film favoring naturalistic motivated choices except for the "ethereal" lighting of the cave as well as Weir's tendency to incorporate happy accidents caught on camera into the film.

"Richard Chamberlain: In Conversation with Paul Harris" (22:11) is a Skype video interview in which the actor recalls being attracted to the film by the script and seeing Weir's previous film, speaks highly of his co-stars – particularly Hamnet, Gulpilli and Amagula who was relied upon to settle disputes between the city and country Aboriginals in the cast – recalls Weir playing Pink Floyd on a boom box on his shoulder between shots to get the cast in the right mood, and finding some of the shooting situations like the cave sequence "testing." Whereas McElroy noted that Chamberlain hated Adelaide during the shoot, the actor speaks positively about the location shoot and is sorry that THE THORN BIRDS was not actually shot there (he notes that like SHOGUN, THE THORN BIRDS as initially a feature film concept and both times Robert Redford was ahead of him in line for the lead roles). In discussing his career overall, he finds miniseries to be the happy medium between the hectic pacing of television shows and the tedium of film shoots.