Tag Archives: The Last Wave (1977)

Return to The Last Wave

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

The Last Wave posterDuring the recent Melbourne International Film Festival, I had an interesting discussion about whether genre films can ever deal with important social issues in a way that is not titillating or exploitative. One example of a genre film that does, shown at this year’s MIFF, is Peter Weir’s 1977 film, The Last Wave.

The Internet Movie Database classifies The Last Wave as a ‘drama/mystery/thriller’ but it is also laced with supernatural/occult tropes popular in many horror films of the seventies. It’s a story about weather and the climate, in a way that can now be viewed as a remarkably prescient. But most importantly, given my introductory comments, it is also a relatively sophisticated attempt by a white director to engage with Indigenous Australian issues and mythology and the clash between Aboriginal law and Western law.

You can read my piece on Weir’s The Last Wave in full here on the Overland site.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Dystopian cinema, Horror

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My 10 anticipated films of the Melbourne International Film Festival

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

The Duke of BurgundyThe Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is almost upon us and, this year, I am seeing more than my usual quota of films. I won’t go into detail regarding everything I’ve booked, but here are the ten films I am most excited about.

The Duke of Burgundy

Confession: I missed this in my first pass of the MIFF program and, thankfully, was alerted by a friend to the fact it was playing. Despite some problems with the last quarter of the film I adored Berberian Sound Studio (2013), Peter Strickland’s tasteful, authentic non-Tarantinoesque homage to Italian giallo films of the seventies. So The Duke of Burgundy, a tribute to the Euro sleaze films of Jess Franco and Walerian Borowczyk has me very excited.

Sunrise

My search for a decent Indian neo noir continues with Partho Sen-Gupta’s 2014 feature, Sunrise. In 2012 I sat through all six hours of Gangs of Wasseypur, the sprawling saga of two rival crime families in the Indian state of Bihar. It held together well for the first half before degenerating into a Spaghetti Western-like shoot ‘em up. In 2013, it was Monsoon, a Mumbai based crime drama about a rookie cop and his corrupt older partner. It showed promise but I felt it was too focused on achieving the right aesthete at the expense of story.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction and film from India, Crime fiction and film from Japan, Kinji Fukasaku, Melbourne International Film Festival, True crime, Yakuza films

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