The Wave
IF YOU like to go to the movies purely to be entertained, and not to think, stay well clear of The Wave.
The one thing that seems to be certain about this German film is that it starts off pretty serious and can only get more so. With mechanical language and often hard to read white subtitles.
Downfall and The Lives of Others are brilliant, recent movies from Germany that were unmissable in cinemas.
And Holocaust film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a current must-see for 12 to 15-yeard-olds (providing they’re taken by intelligent adults who can discuss it with them afterwards).
The longer The Wave (Die Welle) goes on, though, at Cineworld Broad Street, the more you might feel you’re drowning, not waving.
Morton Rhue’s youth novel of the same name has been a classic for more than 20 years, and is required reading material in many German schools.
It’s a work of fiction based in fact – the original experiment was conducted by history teacher Ron Jones at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, CA in 1967 – with the film’s central premise asking ‘what can youngsters rebel against today?’
A high school teacher then decides to teach his pupils a thing or two about life under a dictatorship.
Will he succeed in shaking them out of their apparent complacency with regard to whether the evils of the past could ever resurface?
Directed by Dennis Gansel (Before the Fall), The Wave is a good-looking film with decent performances throughout its 107-minute running time.
And there’s nothing wrong with its historical, sub-Shakespearean message being repeated in the Big Brother age when some people are in danger of becoming the very thing they despise.
But, unlike the students, I refused to succumb. The next time I want to be steamrollered I’ll lie down on the Autobahn and phone Tarmac.
Website: www.welle.info
