The Wave

Yet more proof of the current strength of German cinema, The Wave takes a Californian high school experiment on the dangers of fascism and transposes it to Germany, immediately adding layers of resonance. The intellectual arrogance of Rainer Wenger results in his project week class on autocracy forming themselves into a group called The Wave, complete with uniform (white shirt and jeans) and a rather laughable salute. This basis set-up raises several issues. The class might be fully aware of their country's Nazi past but they ignore the fascist underpinnings of The Wave, even though these tenets have already been stated during the first lesson. Those in positions of authority, be they parents or the school head, support The Wave while it appears to be having a beneficial effect on pupils' behaviour. This in turn indicates the undoubted positives that emerge from the establishment of the group: feelings of comradeship and solidarity in a class formally riven with cliques (although The Wave actually replaces several small cliques with a large one); new friendships (for instance between Sinan and Marco, formally antagonistic team-mates on the water polo team); increased confidence among some of the pupils (Dennis the put-upon theatre director *finally* asserts himself during yet another ramshackle rehearsal) These are the immediate, obvious results which blind people to the darker undertones.
Also interesting is the point at which the handful of dissenters decide it's gone, or is going, too far. Mona baulks at the uniform, while Karo breaks with The Wave after feeling persecuted for wearing a red top instead of white. Marco however only realizes the full repercussions after he's committed an act of violence, and Rainer only when Sinan attacks an opponent during a match, while a fight breaks out after Karo throws anti-Wave fliers into the crowd (clear echoes of Sophie Scholl) The point of Rainer's experiment may have been to demonstrate how easily a nation can drift into fascism, or let it flourish but the class (and Rainer) lose sight of it being a project and it gathers a momentum of it's own. The timeframe may be unrealistically foreshortened and the ending melodramatic, but there's an undeniable power to its conclusion. Fascism = violence and terror.