The Last Wave complicate the distinction between European and Indigenous Peoples on narrative, aesthetic, and ideological levels:
The film goes back and forth between the judicial process of the colonizers and the tribal laws of the aboriginals, showing how the murder case is complicated amid two law systems. We are invited to piece together the truth with both the information we get through the lawyer and the tribal wall painting we see in the end, but these two sources of information are scrambled together, so that we can’t differentiate them. There are many scenes and images in the film that suggest this intermingling. When it rains heavily outside, which the aboriginals take as an apocalyptic sign, the lawyer’s house is also flooded with tub water. There is an interesting image early in the film where a man on the street drinks water from a tab while holding an umbrella to shield him from rainwater, suggesting the hypocrisy or ludicrousness of differentiating between the two kinds of water. The lawyer’s dream or fantasy are intercutted with real scenes to blur the line between reality and imagination, but also between the colonizers’ world of rationality and the aboriginals’ world of tribal mysteries. The aboriginal beliefs finally influence the lawyer’s recognition of self, thus fully creeping into the colonizers’ world.
However, The Last Wave still maintains dominant cultural hierarchies.
The social statuses of the colonizers and the aboriginals are not equal, with the white protagonist being a respectable lawyer, having decent suits… etc. The lawyer and his family also take up more theatrical space and time, with most stories and fantasies happening in THEIR house or THEIR court, allowing them to “play a home game” and making it easier for audience to identify with them. The reverse only happens intermittently and in the end, when the lawyer no longer has control over his own house. Over the course, only the lawyer has the ability to freeze the narrative and make us ascent into his inner world, like fantasy or dreams. The ending is an example, where we the lawyer’s meditation concludes the whole story. It’s also interesting to me that even at the end, I think the audience are still not sure of what really happens. The aboriginal culture remains a “dark continent” or a mystery, open to (colonizers’) exploration and objectification.
骚闷,十分不提气
7.9 水为贯穿全片的意象。末日图景的美丽,如果进入了便会深陷其中。神秘、缓慢、晦涩却足够闷死一堆人。
好片。顶顶好的电影。澳大利亚电影对民俗的欲说换休真的绝了。
和《悬崖上的野餐》一样,也是一部原始神秘主义电影,澳大利亚这块神秘的大陆太过吸引彼得·韦尔了,这样的题材还不知道有多少。如果这种神秘力量真的存在的话,电影恐怖要成为一些人的顶礼膜拜的对象了。
没看懂。
9/10
节奏拖沓 情节混乱 不明白为什么被选入CC
澳大利亚的神秘主义,一桩真相飘忽的凶杀案件。彼得·威尔是营造悬疑、恐怖氛围的高手,一座现代化城市中,他不仅能够找到真正的土著,还用了真正的神秘遗迹,更以城市中被隐藏的空间构造了神秘通道。
7.8/10。白人男主由于为一原住民被杀案件做律师而卷入了各种难以捉摸的诡秘风波/血案。关键词包括原住民与白人殖民者间的隔阂/矛盾。本片有表意有力(且很有神秘主义氛围)的高水平摄影美术,但作为传统故事片本片叙事节奏很慢(虽然这种慢也增强了神秘的氛围(同质于《扎马》)),扣1分。
02.11.2009 电影课之【原始神秘主义,宗教迷信科学】。大导Peter Weir早期艺术作品。各种符号,梦境,土著文明,非常神秘诡异甚至些许晦涩同时又非常吸引人。值得一看。
也许时间起浪,穿越过梦境化雨倾泻,那之前我在何处?也许身土成洞,塌陷了生路如墓掩埋,在最后问你是谁?3.5
太隐晦难懂了,这就是文化差异啊!
水的象徵可塑性。用一種看起來很類型、很具象,卻又裝得神秘兮兮的方式,展開自我認同的探索,可惜對「正義」白人律師及「恐怖」原住民的再現仍落入窠臼,豈不有點自我矛盾…
又是一个末日预言,这次将玛雅文化和澳洲土著联系到了一起,澳洲土著成了某个玛雅预言的守护者,张伯伦扮演的这个角色出生在南美生活在澳洲成为连接两种文化的重要枢纽。或许也可以把他看做是一部另类的环保电影,白人们侵占了土著的世界,破坏了他们的文明,破坏了生态平衡。。。
謀殺,神秘,懸念,驚悚…雨、水、浪還有土著人……
彼得·威尔对于神秘主义的爱好继续加深,水、梦境、创世和灭世、异文化的土著人、图腾和禁忌,都是极度符合这种倾向的元素。
除了神秘主义那一套外,还有一层心理精神分析可以解释男主的执拗。
男主角曾经演过《荆棘鸟》,样貌不俗,还真以为他生长在澳洲,一看资料,是个加州土著。那这份澳洲气质还真是难得。人类有太多未解之谜,现在的科学水平无法解释。
现实,梦境,土著,文明,交织缠绵在一起
神秘主义,土著问题,没看太明白