Wildside Review - The Wave

Director Dennis Gansel’s previous movie was the flawed, yet still very enjoyable, vampire flick We Are The Night (Wie Sind Die Nacht). Now, whereas that movie was rooted firmly in the realms of the fantastical, as to my knowledge there aren’t vampires swanning around Berlin at the moment (although I could be wrong), The Wave has its feet firmly placed in modern day reality. The story may seem slightly outlandish but it is based on a novel which takes its cues from an actual experiment performed in 1967.

Set in a German high school in western Germany, although filmed near Berlin, The Wave follows rebellious school teacher Rainer Wenger (Jurgen Vogel) and his class during Project Week. The class itself is Autocracy, and not Anarchy as Wenger would have preferred, so he starts to ask the pupils what autocracy actually means and their thoughts on it. As the discussions progress they involve into an experiment as to whether the class could operate as one unit, with one leader, much as a dictatorship would work. The results being that both teacher and pupil become absorbed into their new roles, the majority embracing it whilst one or two find themselves ostracized from the group.

For the entire review click here