| The Wave | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Dennis Gansel |
| Produced by | Christian Becker Nina Maag Anita Schneider |
| Written by | Dennis Gansel Peter Thorwarth |
| Starring | Jürgen Vogel Frederick Lau Max Riemelt Jennifer Ulrich Jacob Matschenz |
| Release date(s) | March 2008 |
| Running time | 107 minutes |
| Language | German |
The Wave (German: Die Welle) is a 2008 German film directed by Dennis Gansel and starring Jürgen Vogel, Max Riemelt, Jennifer Ulrich, Jacob Matschenz and Frederick Lau. It is based on the book The Wave which was inspired by the social experiment The Third Wave. The film was produced by Christian Becker for Rat Pack Filmproduktion. It was quite successful in German cinemas, and after 10 weeks 2.3 million people had watched the film.
Contents |
The film opens with high-school teacher Rainer Wenger (Jürgen Vogel) driving to his job while passionately singing along to a cover of Rock 'n' Roll High School.
The high-school is having a project week and Wenger discusses autocracy with his class. His students, third generation after the Second World War,[1] do not believe that a dictatorship could be established in modern Germany, so Wenger starts an experiment to demonstrate how easily the masses can be manipulated. Critically, the lead up to this shows Herr Wenger as an anarchist by nature and, prior to taking the class, asks the Head to swap with the teacher taking the Anarchy project and is refused. However, he goes into the project with enthusiasm and, as a popular teacher, has the students' full attention.
He begins by demanding that all students address him as "Herr Wenger", as opposed to Rainer, and changes the seating arrangement in a direction facing the front of the class, placing students with poor grades beside students with good grades – purportedly so they can learn from one another and become better as a whole. If the students want to say something aloud, they must stand up and give short pre-considered answers. Wenger shows his students the effect of marching together in the same rhythm, motivating them by suggesting that they could really annoy the class below them (the Anarchy class).
Wenger suggests every student in the group should wear a white shirt and jeans, to remove class distinction and further unite the group. Mona also argues it will remove individuality as well. The student Karo (Jennifer Ulrich) shows up to class without the "uniform" and is surprised to find out that everyone is wearing a white shirt and jeans. The students suggest that since they are a group, they should choose a name, and they decide on "Die Welle" (The Wave). Karo suggests another name and which ends up with no votes at all. The group is shown to grow closer, and the bully Bomber is shown to reform for the better. He also creates a distinctive salute for the group. Karo and Mona, protest against the actions of the group, in addition to three boys who leave the project. Eventually, two of the three boys return to class, while Mona, disgusted with how her classmates are embracing fascism, leaves the project group. The other classmates don't see any connection with their activity and fascism seeing only good things come from the movement. The members of The Wave begin spray-painting their logo around town, having parties where only Wave members are allowed to attend and generally, even unwittingly, ostracising and tormenting anyone not in their group.
One young man in particular, Tim, becomes very attached to the group, having finally become an accepted member of a social group in school. He burns his name-brand clothes after a discussion about how large corporations do not take responsibility for their actions. A pair of punks start a fight with Tim, but he is saved by Bomber and Sinan. He starts to bond with them and many other students. Tim later shows up at Wenger's house, offering to be a bodyguard. Wenger invites Tim in, saying he can have dinner, but no guarding is necessary. This puts further strain on Wenger's already tense relationship with his wife, who thinks the experiment has gone too far. Wenger finally ejects Tim from his house, only to find in the morning that the boy had slept on his doorstep.
Karo continues her attempts to expose the actions of The Wave, eventually earning the anger of many in the group, who approach her boyfriend, Marco (Max Riemelt), and ask him to do something about it. During their confrontation, Marco becomes angry and hits Karo, which drives home the fact that the experiment has become out of control. Marco approaches Herr Wenger, and asks him to stop the project. Wenger tells Marco to leave it up to him, and calls a meeting of all Wave members in the auditorium.
Once in the meeting, Wenger has the doors locked and begins whipping the students into a fervour, shouting that they will roll over Germany and change things to the way they ought to be. All the students are cheering and applauding. Marco stands and speaks against their actions, at which point Wenger calls for the "traitor" to be brought to the stage. When four boys bring Marco on stage, the teacher finally confronts them with their actions, asking them how far they would have gone; if they would have killed this boy had he asked. He reminds them of their assertion at the beginning of the week that another dictatorship would be impossible in Germany, and the majority of the students seem to feel shame and remorse when they realize that they have been participating in just that. Some students insist that the Wave has also brought forth good things, but Wenger insist that it has to end, pointing out that the negative sides outweigh the positives on too many levels. Tim, stating that the Wave has become his life, acts frantically, shoots his new friend Bomber when he tries to calm him down, wounding him, before taking his own life. Wenger falls to his knees next to Tim's body and looks helplessly on his students.
The film ends with Wenger being taken into custody by the police, while he looks about at the victims, he is driven off. The film ends with Wenger seeing something ahead of him that frightens him, but this is not revealed to the audience leaving it out to speculation (Gansel's next film We are the Night ends the same way).
The soundtrack of the film was released on May 25, 2008 through EMI Germany, and contains tracks by The Subways, Kilians, Johnossi, Digitalism and The Hives, as well as an EL*KE version of the classic Ramones' track "Rock 'n' Roll High School". The title-song "Garden Of Growing Hearts" was performed by Berlin band Empty Trash. The original film score was composed by Heiko Maile, a member of the band Camouflage.
In the book the action takes place in 1969 in the fictitious US Gordon High School, which in turn is based on an actual event at Cubberley High School, in Palo Alto, California. The film is set in 2008 in a German high school. The names were changed to sound Germanic, but the characters are similar. For example, Rainer Wenger is Ben Ross; Karo and Marco, Laurie Saunders and David Collins; Mona is Andrea; Tim, the outsider, is Robert Billings. The outsider theme was expanded by introducing three new characters: Sinan who is Turkish, Kevin the aggressive bully and Dennis from East Germany who is mocked as "Ossi". The film's ending is more extreme than the novel's where there is no violence nor is the teacher arrested.
The students are rehearsing a play, in which only "The Wave" students have roles after Karo is fired. This play is 'Der Besuch der alten Dame' of Friedrich Dürrenmatt. In this play, an old woman who was exiled from her village by her fellow inhabitants comes back after years; since she has lost her billionaire husband and inherited his wealth, she has her revenge by leading all the villagers to kill her former lover who didn't help her. One of the themes is the group action and how people lose their personalities in a group. This mirrors the teacher's experience, who lead people into acting and losing personalities.
The film can be seen as echoing the earlier German film Das Experiment, and also has tones of the Stephen King book (also made into a film), "Apt Pupil".