Die Welle - 2008

This was tough, but fascinating. I liked it, it was very interesting. In a school, among the usual courses, there's also a class on Anarchy and one on Autocracy. This last one is teached by Rainer (Jürgen Vogel, according to Imdb) who tries an experiment to better explain what autocracy means. He creates a group. First day they simply have to call him Sir, raise their hand to ask permission to speak, stand up before talking, take an active part in the class discussions. It starts off really well. A girl has trouble expressing her thoughts (nervous like every student being interrogated ): Rainer helps her, he tells her to sit down, relax and try again. She speaks better and feels good. All the kids go home feeling good, thrilled about it; second day Rainer talks about uniforms: with uniforms everyone is equal, there are no more poor or rich, no more cultural differences, they could all be the same, so Rainer proposes something simple: jeans and a white shirt, something everybody has. We see a kid helping a member of his group who didn't have one, proposing to give him one of his, saying he has two, while that same day he goes to a shop to buy two white shirts. Third day all the kids except Carol wear the white shirt, and start acting like a 'group'. Two strong kids help Tim because he was being bullied. They were never close before, Tim had no real friends, a troubled home, he always felt alone, bullied, laughed at, but now he feels part of something greater. The kids are getting more and more involved. They create a logo, a website, a name for the group: "the wave" (which is the title of the movie), a gesture to use as group salute. After school many of them keep the white shirts on, make stickers with the logo, paint it around the city, and start excluding everyone is not part of the Wave. Soon the kids start considering people outside the group like enemies, start fights at the waterpolo game. Tim put images of guns in the website homepage, and shows up at Rainer's house claiming to be his bodyguard, wanting to be with him because no one else cares about him at his home. Rainer doesn't see how far this is going, knows nothing of what they do outside school, can't control the situation. One night Carol fights with Marco because of the Wave; she gives him a push and he hits her on the face. He's shocked, he loves her and yet he hit her. He runs to Rainer's house to explain to him what this thing has done to him, how it has transformed him. Marco urges Rainer to stop it so, after only a week since the experiment started, Rainer sends a message to set up a meeting: all members of the Wave reunite, and they are a lot , now, not just the kids of the class. It's a powerful image when Rainer enters seeing them all there, they looked to me like an army of soldiers. Rainer starts saying how the Wave must go on, how it must stand against all that is wrong in the world. Marco opposes him publicly and when Rainer says 'bring here the traitor' a few kids take hold of him and carry him near him. Now Rainer hopes to explain them the result of the experiment. What should we do now? Why did you bing him here against his will? Answer: because you told us to. So what if I told you to kill him, would you do it? So now Rainer tells them how this thing has gone too far, how it must end right now. He tells them to go home. Nobody is happy about this, they liked being part of a gang, but stand up and start going away when Tim comes forward drawing his gun, saying that the Wave was everything to him, his whole life. He injures a kid to prove how serious he is, then threatens Rainer. The situation is really serious, the kids are all scared, Rainer tries to get him to lower his gun. 'If you come any closer I'll shoot you', 'then what? You'll have no more Mr Rainer to guide your Wave?'. Tim thinks about it, that's not what he wants, he wanted the Wave as it was before but he can't have it back, so he turns the gun against himself and shoots. Everyone is in shock. The police come to arrest Rainer. The injured kid is taken away in an ambulance. Carol and Marco hug and try to console a crying friend. This is the end of a week-long experiment. They all liked the feeling of being part of something big, but Rainer didn't see that some of them were becoming extremists. One thing is liking something, another thing is to become a fanatic, completely different and dangerously easily leading to violence.
Wow, I liked this movie.

In Italy: L'onda