Imagine this situation. A Autocracy teacher develops with his students an social experiment about how dictatorships are created and he challenges the boys and girls who said that this kind of fascist regime would be impossible to exist in the 21st century. What kind of students are we talking about? High School Teenagers on a German school. The result was "The Wave" a thrilling movie about the dangers of what teachers told us to do, unlearned lessons, blind faith and the excess of discipline.
The Wave is the name of the group created by Mr. Wenger (Jürgen Vogel), the teacher, in order to demonstrate (initially) how the Nazist, Communist, Fascist movements are formed and supported by people. Wenger makes his students march enthusiastically in the classroom, limits their verbal answers to simple words; manages to all of them dressed up uniformly in white shirts and blue jeans; instigates them to design web sites for the group; salutations; and more. And the students fell in love with this idea, because it works, they're helping each other, everyone is united for one cause. But there's more than one side on this story, there are the ones who dislike this concept and the ones who take Wenger's lesson to a next level, involving themselves in acts of disorder, or rejecting students who are not part of the group.
As Mr. Nolan says to Professor Keating in "Dead Poets Society" teenagers get impressed very easily with everything a teacher says and in that case the director said: "Follow the schedule and teach them to be disciplined". Well, that was a story set in the 1950's and things were handled easily; here we have a story presented in the present time, and teachers need to "hold" attention of the students, and any method is valid or used in order to get that. And "The Wave" caught the students attention, they learned a few good things with it but they are gonna be able to sustain that?
The contemporary society is so dispersed that we sure going to look positively to Wenger's idea of discipline and respect at first, and many of the students are going to follow him almost blindly (one of them even set his good clothes on fire, and only uses the new uniform). At the end it backfired! Everything got out of control and the lesson is thrown on us the viewers. Yes, dictatorship regimes can return again in every possible society and the teacher proves that with his experiment. Is it possible to control the fanaticism of the people who become fascinated by this new order? No.
This experiment really existed and took place in California in the 1960's (the book written about it was this movie basis). The few things I researched about the real experiment don't tell about wrong aspects and why it was called it off but the movie points right on the target what can possibly go wrong. Germany as the scenery of the film was good, considering that a autocracy government existed in there (in the film the students even hates to discuss the Nazism in class). But I wonder what would have happened if "The Wave" was established in my country? One thing is sure: I think that would have fail from day one. Teens are so distant from political events, and the spirit of union demanded in the project would be impossible to achieve because of an enormous lack of union between students here.
Another interesting thing portrayed here was the relative power of one person, not only by the teacher, but a girl who walked out of the experiment and tried to convince the other students of how things were going in the wrong direction. She refused to wear the white shirt, missed interest in the class, and even fought with her boyfriend believing that everything in "The Wave" was wrong. My tiny disappointment with the screenplay comes from we're never able to see what she wrote in her manifest against the group and the real reasons of why she hated all that. In short: if a teacher tells you things you can follow easily but if a colleague says another thing you won't even listen. An subtle look in History if we think about Hitler (people listened to him and supported his evil plans) and Churchill (tried hard to say that the world was in danger times before the war reach England). Again, the power of one person is relative and it changes everything.
"The Wave" is one of the reasons of why I like movies. I hardly ever say something like this but this is so right and I can honestly say this about 150 movies I watched. Maybe more. Why I liked this film so much? It was dazzling, provocative, controversial, mind blowing, intriguing, pointed out an interesting discussion, and at the end it is one of these masterpieces that makes you want more, makes you have a discussion with everyone you know about it. Even more important: It urges viewers to look into their own lives and make comparisons of their realities and see what works and what doesn't works. These experiment would have worked in my country? What kind of person I'd be? A member of The Wave or a member of the Resistance? That kind of questions. This movie has everything I like to see in terms of movies. Without a good discussion, some questions and some answers you can't have a decent movie.
Excellent performances by all the casting, greatly directed, "The Wave" is a must see film for everyone who enjoys great and difficult themes to debate. Can't hardly wait to see it again! 10/10
The Wave is the name of the group created by Mr. Wenger (Jürgen Vogel), the teacher, in order to demonstrate (initially) how the Nazist, Communist, Fascist movements are formed and supported by people. Wenger makes his students march enthusiastically in the classroom, limits their verbal answers to simple words; manages to all of them dressed up uniformly in white shirts and blue jeans; instigates them to design web sites for the group; salutations; and more. And the students fell in love with this idea, because it works, they're helping each other, everyone is united for one cause. But there's more than one side on this story, there are the ones who dislike this concept and the ones who take Wenger's lesson to a next level, involving themselves in acts of disorder, or rejecting students who are not part of the group.
As Mr. Nolan says to Professor Keating in "Dead Poets Society" teenagers get impressed very easily with everything a teacher says and in that case the director said: "Follow the schedule and teach them to be disciplined". Well, that was a story set in the 1950's and things were handled easily; here we have a story presented in the present time, and teachers need to "hold" attention of the students, and any method is valid or used in order to get that. And "The Wave" caught the students attention, they learned a few good things with it but they are gonna be able to sustain that?
The contemporary society is so dispersed that we sure going to look positively to Wenger's idea of discipline and respect at first, and many of the students are going to follow him almost blindly (one of them even set his good clothes on fire, and only uses the new uniform). At the end it backfired! Everything got out of control and the lesson is thrown on us the viewers. Yes, dictatorship regimes can return again in every possible society and the teacher proves that with his experiment. Is it possible to control the fanaticism of the people who become fascinated by this new order? No.
This experiment really existed and took place in California in the 1960's (the book written about it was this movie basis). The few things I researched about the real experiment don't tell about wrong aspects and why it was called it off but the movie points right on the target what can possibly go wrong. Germany as the scenery of the film was good, considering that a autocracy government existed in there (in the film the students even hates to discuss the Nazism in class). But I wonder what would have happened if "The Wave" was established in my country? One thing is sure: I think that would have fail from day one. Teens are so distant from political events, and the spirit of union demanded in the project would be impossible to achieve because of an enormous lack of union between students here.
Another interesting thing portrayed here was the relative power of one person, not only by the teacher, but a girl who walked out of the experiment and tried to convince the other students of how things were going in the wrong direction. She refused to wear the white shirt, missed interest in the class, and even fought with her boyfriend believing that everything in "The Wave" was wrong. My tiny disappointment with the screenplay comes from we're never able to see what she wrote in her manifest against the group and the real reasons of why she hated all that. In short: if a teacher tells you things you can follow easily but if a colleague says another thing you won't even listen. An subtle look in History if we think about Hitler (people listened to him and supported his evil plans) and Churchill (tried hard to say that the world was in danger times before the war reach England). Again, the power of one person is relative and it changes everything.
"The Wave" is one of the reasons of why I like movies. I hardly ever say something like this but this is so right and I can honestly say this about 150 movies I watched. Maybe more. Why I liked this film so much? It was dazzling, provocative, controversial, mind blowing, intriguing, pointed out an interesting discussion, and at the end it is one of these masterpieces that makes you want more, makes you have a discussion with everyone you know about it. Even more important: It urges viewers to look into their own lives and make comparisons of their realities and see what works and what doesn't works. These experiment would have worked in my country? What kind of person I'd be? A member of The Wave or a member of the Resistance? That kind of questions. This movie has everything I like to see in terms of movies. Without a good discussion, some questions and some answers you can't have a decent movie.
Excellent performances by all the casting, greatly directed, "The Wave" is a must see film for everyone who enjoys great and difficult themes to debate. Can't hardly wait to see it again! 10/10