Blank Check with Griffin & David The Last Wave with BenDavid Grabinski
Mar 22, 2026
Ben David Grabinski, filmmaker (writer/director of Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice). He dives into Peter Weir’s soggy, mystic 1978 film The Last Wave. They talk colonial law clashing with Aboriginal Dreamtime, the film’s relentless wet imagery, striking blue cinematography, the ambiguous tidal ending, and on-set rain effects and practical filmmaking anecdotes.
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Water as Both Villain and Metaphor
- The Last Wave mixes literal and metaphorical water motifs to tie environmental dread to colonial guilt.
- Griffin and David highlight repeated wet imagery and a final giant wave that literalizes the movie’s thematic tidal shift.
How A Teenaged Richard Kelly Tipled Ben David To The Last Wave
- Ben David discovered The Last Wave after reading Richard Kelly praise and receiving a Netflix DVD by mail as a freshman.
- That early encounter hooked him with its mounting dread and seepage between dreams and reality, sparking later Twin Peaks and Lynch viewings.
Movie As A Study Of Colonial Legal Friction
- The film interrogates colonial imposition by showing Western law clashing with Aboriginal law and Dreamtime cosmology.
- Hosts note Weir framed the protagonist as peeling back imposed rules to confront a parallel spiritual reality he can't translate.