Chichester Cinema at New Park
The Wave
- Die Welle
There’s been a good deal of conjecture about just how a totalitarian past affects a national psyche, and a film like this – in which an idealistic teacher takes his students a little too far into a classroom role play on the theme of autocracy – inevitably has particular resonance when it comes out of Germany.
The novel by Todd Strasser, on which the film is based, is a study text in German schools, and etched into the film is the anxious need to keep new generations involved in, and frightened by, the detail of their nation’s past.
German star Jürgen Vogel plays the teacher here, and his self-conscious maverick schtick is nicely delineated: with his punk t-shirts and his matey manner, he’s too keen for the students’ affection, and so impressed by his own hipster daring that he doesn’t recognise the dangers of the game he’s playing.
The execution of this film is arresting: visually slick and driven by a restless energy, it makes its point fast & hard, and joins The Edukators & Goodbye Lenin as a fine addition to the recent German sub-genre of striking and engaging youth-driven political allegories. (subtitles)
Germany · 2008 · Dennis Gansel · 101min
