Die Welle

Plot:

The re-enactment of a very interesting psychological experiment based off historical events.

Review:

The german teacher Rainer Wagner (Jurgen Vogel ) brings up the subject of autocracy to his students and engages them in an experiment. He wants to instill in them that autocracy is still and will always be a threat to democracy, even though his students are highly sceptical of that. They believe we have learned our lesson, so to speak.

As time passes he introduces uniforms, specific salutions and titles. The students, being quite disinterested at first, start to take a liking to the bonding experience they share. His experiment was inspired by what a class in California did in the 1960's which revolved around the individual and the collective as a whole.

This film is thought provoking and raises questions rather than answer them, making this a film worth watching. Its an interesting view into group-psychology and how we are, after all, social beings. And how we also may lose our values and "minds" when we are in a group, the group becomes more important than anything else.

We also get to follow some particular individuals up close aswell as the teacher and how he personally deals with it. The movement they form is called Die Welle which means the Wave in english. Dennis Gansel is the producer here and he is making his second Nazi-related film.

Trailer:

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