movie program three

While Australia is battered by unusually powerful rainstorms, five Aboriginal men are arrested for murder in Sydney. White lawyer David Burton agrees to represent them. With the reluctant help of one of the suspects, Chris Lee, Burton begins to believe that the killing was carried out in the name of tribal law. Plagued by prophetic dreams of a coming apocalypse, Burton becomes obsessed with the secrets that the tribe is guarding, and finds his rational Western worldview shattered. Peter Weir's eerie, rain-soaked thriller is one of the key Australian genre films of the 1970s. It is also among the first Australian films to thoughtfully explore Indigenous religion and culture, bringing the Aboriginal concept of Dreamtime to vivid life through Weir's uncanny imagery.

How will the world end? Whether by nuclear catastrophe, alien invasion or environmental collapse, movies have long sought to answer this question, by envisioning the unthinkable. Today, in an age of accelerated global climate change and Trump's saber rattling with North Korea, apocalypse cinema has never felt more vital. In this program, we look back at the best, boldest, and most unusual visions of The End. Tonight we present a brilliant, nearly-forgotten metaphysical drama from the early 90s.

As the new millennium approaches, rain-drenched Taipei is beset by a mysterious plague which drives people mad, making them behave like cockroaches. With the city evacuated and placed under quarantine, only a few remain in their homes, including Hsiao Kang, a solitary shopkeeper. After a plumber drills a hole in his floor, Hsiao Kang discovers his lovely (and equally lonely) neighbor living in the apartment downstairs. As the hole grows larger, the couple draw closer, their courtship dramatized in a series of exuberant and colorful musical numbers. Will they find each other before they succumb to the plague?