The Wave

The Wave is a German film based on the social experiment of a Californian history teacher who wanted to demonstrate that it would still be possible for a dictatorship to happen even in modern Germany.

As part of project week, rock-and-roll loving teacher Rainer Wenger is made to discuss autocracy with his class. During their first lesson he asks the group if they think it is possible for there to be a dictatorship today, to which they all agree that they are beyond that. This causes Wenger to start a project to show how easily it is to manipulate the masses.

He starts slowly, only giving the teenagers small, subtle rules to follow. First he demands they all call him Herr (Mr.) Wenger and arranges the seating so no one is left in their 'comfort zone'. Before they are allowed to speak they must raise their hand and then stand up. Most of the students see no problem and happily play along for the sake of the experiment. Wenger's rules gradually become more concerning as he makes all students dress in jeans and a white shirt. He does this to unite them and get rid of any class distinctions. Student Karo refuses to wear the uniform and as a result is ignored by the teacher when it came to making decisions for the group or anything else for that matter. We begin to see how powerful The Wave is becoming when, without the help of their teacher, the students decide that their group needed a name, hence The Wave.

The students begin to follow the rules of The Wave beyond the classroom and have parties that are specifically for members of their group. During the end of the film, there is an important school sport event where we see members of the group selling white shirts to other students who want to enter the auditorium, refusing to let anyone in unless they do so. All the members show no tolerance for those who do not wish to comply.

Karo and Mona are the only students who are disgusted at how they rest of the group seem to be accepting and embracing fascism, however they seem to be the only people who can see this. Throughout the week we see how one student above all follows every word Herr Wenger says. Tim, who at the beginning of the film was considered an outsider, made The Wave his life. Enjoying the fact he is finally accepted in to some sort of group, he is shown burning all of his clothes apart from the white shirt and jeans he is told to wear and becomes extremely defensive over the group and their leader, insisting that Wenger needs to be protected. This character is a perfect example of how, with the support of the German people, Hitler was able to come to power. If this group had more students like Tim, it could be possible for The Wave to become a serious problem.

Wenger begins to see how his project is becoming dangerous and arranges a meeting in the school auditorium. Using his student Marco as an example he shows how their group has started to become a problem. They had been so willing to hurt and possibly even kill Marco simply because he did want to participate in the experiment. After that, Wenger tells the students that The Wave is no more and that they should all go home and forget about it. With the threat of losing everything he'd ever wanted, Tim pulls out a gun and refuses to let the teacher end the project, claiming it was his life and it cannot die. After shooting one of the students, Tim seems to realise what he has done and lowers the gun before quickly turning it on himself and committing suicide.

All in all, The Wave did an excellent job in showing how easy it would be to manipulate people into behaving and thinking a certain way. You would think the smart teenagers who refused to believe it would be possible for a dictatorship to happen again would have seen this coming, but in the end only two of the students had shown any sort of opposition. The message in the film is strong all the way to the end and definitely leaves those watching speechless.