Die Welle (2008)

Directed by: Dennis Gansel | 101 minutes | drama, history | Actors: Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt, Jennifer Ulrich, Christiane Paul, Elyas M’Barek, Cristina do Rego, Jacob Matschenz, Maximilian Vollmar, Max Mauff, Ferdinand Schmidt-Modrow, Tim Oliver Schultz, Amelie Kiefer, Odine Johne, Fabian Preger

‘Die Welle’ is based on a true experiment conducted in his class in 1967 by history teacher Ron Jones in Palo Alto, California. That was in response to a question how it was possible that Hitler had managed to have so many people follow him blindly. That experiment had shocking results, about which the film ‘The Wave’ was made at the time. The sublime German remake ‘Die Welle’ has now been made of that film by director Dennis Gansel. In German, the associations are even stronger with fascism and the history of the Third Reich. The film is a penetrating warning about how fascism still easily finds a breeding ground.

The film opens with images of the charismatic teacher Rainer Wegner (strong role by Jürgen Vogel). He is young, modern, listens to punk rock, is a bit of an outcast within the teaching staff and is popular among his students. He wants to do a project week with Democracy as the subject. However, that is awarded to another teacher. In desperation he then starts with another subject: Autocracy. Initially, this subject hardly appeals to his students. To get them more involved, he starts the project week with an experiment that eventually gets completely out of hand. Rainer knows how to explain the workings of the autocratic system in a sophisticated way and – gradually – to introduce it into his class. The ‘game’ has started, the leader leads the troops and the students become more and more involved. In a subtle way Rainer manages to manipulate students and turn the individual individuals into a group that, in the context of his experiment, slides further and further towards fascist tendencies.

The group becomes more and more enthusiastic and works more and more drastically. Agreements are made about a new greeting, a kind of uniform and supporting each other against the dissenters. Students with a dissenting opinion are excluded or sometimes harshly corrected. The screenplay here has a reference to Sophie Scholl. The pupils/followers of Die Welle are changing more and more and are becoming more and more aggressive in their behavior towards the outside world. New students are attracted and join from other classes. Initially this is amusing to watch, but as the study week progresses it becomes more and more terrifying. There are protests within the teaching staff and his wife, who is also a teacher at the same school, warns him. However, Rainer is convinced that he can control the group dynamics and manage the processes.

Things get harder and harder to control, events take their course…. ‘Die Welle’ is an extremely powerful film with an effective message and can be used perfectly for educational projects in schools. The screenplay is extremely believable. The characters are well developed, showing how sophisticated people can be manipulated and how resistance can be broken. Across the board, the acting is particularly convincing with outstanding roles for Jürgen Vogel as Rainer and Frederick Lau as Tim. The suspense of the story is held to the very end and the ending is unexpected and unpredictable. The final scenes have great imaginative power. Magisterial and an absolute must see!