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Picnic at Hanging Rock (100%)

Plot: Nominally a supernatural thriller, Peter Weir's third feature resonates with the director's underlying fascination with the collision between the modern, rational world and the primordial mysteries of...( read more read more... ) older belief systems. In The Last Wave, the keys to an enigmatic murder, as well as baffling disturbances in the weather, are gradually revealed to an Australian lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) within the shadowy, nomadic culture of aborigines living in and around Sydney who until now were presumed to be assimilated into its modern--and white--social fabric. In the process, Weir brings us toward an apocalyptic climax that is foreshadowed with a haunting series of events that cohere around water imagery, from an improbable drowning on dry land to downpours from cloudless skies, sudden hailstorms on the sere Australian land, and ghostly invasions of frogs.

The film's power (as well as what skeptics might regard as its pretension) emanates from Weir's stately, deliberate pace. Violating most of the conventions of suspense, he unravels his mystery with an unsettling calm underscored by its sparse soundtrack, which replaces conventional orchestral cues with the low, brooding rattle and hum of the didgeridoo. Instead of sudden camera movements or quick cuts, Weir circles his subjects almost diffidently. The stillness of that approach only amplifies the mounting unease Chamberlain's character, David Burton, feels as he steps for the first time beyond the bland safety of his privileged life and into the mystical world of the native Australians. Taking on the defense of the aborigines suspected of murdering the drowned man through tribal magic, his own beliefs are tested by the suspects' evident, intuitive connections to nature.

Chamberlain's Anglicized performance seems fussy and epicene, which only heightens the quiet intensity and watchful grace conveyed by the two aborigines, Chris Lee (David Gulpilil) and the shaman, Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), who give Burton his first glimpse of their culture's "dreamtime" and the potent symbolism it contains. --Sam Sutherland

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Recent Reviews

  • 3.0 Stars
    MCT:
    June 6, 2008
    Excelente atmósfera y una trama muy intrigante, pero el personaje central carece de la fuerza interior necesaria. / Excellent atmosphere and intriguing plot, but the central character lacks the inner strength required.
  • 3.5 Stars
    MCT:
    December 27, 2007
    wonderful Peter Weir atmosphere. Delightfully confusing at times with an overwhelming foreboding throughout.
  • Want To See
    MCT:
    September 9, 2007
    A Sydney lawyer has more to worry about than higher-than-average rainfall when he is called upon to defend five Aboriginals in court. Determined to break their silence and discover the truth behind the hidden society he suspects lives in his city, the Lawyer is drawn further, and more intimately, into a prophesy that threatens a new Armageddon, wherein all the continent shall drown.
  • 5.0 Stars
    MCT:
    August 21, 2007
    A lot of times when I watch supernatural thriller, they sort of make it too Hitchcock in style or it just doesn't draw you in. I hate that. This is the supernatura, how can it not draw you in or at least make you know what is it. For this movie, we see a lot about transitions and discovery, the theme of something forlorn. The camera really helps in that, when it moves, it is an uneasy disturbing movement, making transitions difficult, we see that in the aborigines living in a city, their culture absorbed into a metropolis, a city not their own. The lead character is driven mainly by curiosity and then later, by sheerempathy, these people talking about premonitions and him having it. I personally thought it's a fascinating film, about the thin line between rational, pragmatic and tradition white, Protestant thought in conflict with the world as it is and also in conflict together with and against the primitive, primordial andantediluvian beliefs of a people, barely tainted by the New World, spiritually if not physically.
  • 4.5 Stars
    MCT:
    August 8, 2007
    I have never seen anything quite like it. One of the most absorbing stories of the supernatural in all of film. It draws you into a world too haunting and compelling to forget.
  • 4.0 Stars
    MCT:
    July 21, 2007
    3rd movie of Peter Weir, good suspense and super ending. set a superb mood, and good character developement
  • 3.5 Stars
    MCT:
    January 7, 2007
    From the director of picnic at hanging rock. well made supernatural thriller, exploring aboriginal dreamtime prophocy
  • 4.0 Stars
    MCT:
    November 3, 2006
    This is a VERY atmospheric film...maybe it's not perfect, and moves kinda slow, but I think it's extremely well done.

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Details

  • Rated: (PG)
  • Directed by: Peter Weir
  • Genres: Mystery & Suspense, Art House & International, Drama
  • Released: December 31, 1977
  • DVD Released: November 13, 2001

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