The Last Wave

Weir up to his usual tricks with 'civilised' man coming up against an alien, apparently less rational, society. In this case it's Chamberlain's white liberal lawyer who, in defending a group of Aborigines accused of murder, stumbles across a world of ritual mysteries and prophecies of apocalyptic proportions. From the opening scene, in which an inexplicable and ferocious hailstorm hits Sydney, Weir creates an impressively unsettling atmosphere; sad, then, that all the stuff about primeval voodoo is both simplistic and patronising. Even sadder, however, is the final, climactic image, in which the threat to civilisation as we know it is presented in the form of a puddle shot through a fish-eye lens.