Cine TV Contest #38 - Favorite Political Movie: Die Welle / The Wave.
In high school, teachers always present a project in order to involve their students and teach them some lessons. Rainer Wenger, a German teacher, wants to focus on a project that revolves around what is known as anarchy, but the topic has already been addressed by another educator. Thus, this teacher must address another topic in his class, the one concerning autocracy.
Watching this film warns the viewer of the danger of certain political ideologies, and of the need of young people for something more than drugs, alcohol, sex and parties. Many need to believe that they can belong to some movement or sect because they belong to family and supposed friends where they are not taken into account or are mistreated.
In my high school days I have encountered teachers like this one who lose control over their proposals, were vain and did not correct their mistakes. They did not realize the influence they had on the students.
The teacher begins to believe his role of leader, and while few will realize what is really happening.
This autocratic movement project gives birth to a common mentality in which young people feel they are part of something important, in which they are all equal, and are represented by an image that identifies them: The Wave.
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I watched this film with my wife and immediately after it ended we talked about issues such as fascism, unity, loyalty to a leader, rejection of anything different, surveillance of political regimes, control, propaganda and denouncing reprehensible acts.
We recommended this film to family and friends, and we had to lend our DVD disc many times, until we decided to take a backup copy of it.
The most interesting thing about the film is to observe how teenagers manage to fall into these populist political ideologies.
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This film is based on a real event that occurred in the United States in 1967 in California, a teacher named Ron Jones wanted to talk to his students about fascism and implemented a regime of military discipline in his class.
The students harassed anyone who did not join the group and the teacher felt how his personality also began to change, frightened he managed to suspend the project a few days later.
The film conveys the idea that the human being gives much importance to the groups of belonging, and therefore loses his individuality.
The final scenes of the film have not been erased from my mind because they are very raw and show that Professor Rainer Wenger has reacted too late to the mistakes made during this project.
Wenger gives a speech the day the experiment was supposed to end, commenting that he thinks that such a project should not end, explaining the problems of today's society and that The Wave is the only way to fix it. One of the students, raises his voice and says that the real problem is The Wave, calling his student a traitor in front of his classmates, the students become exalted and ask to throw him out of the window. The teacher reacts and tells them that this is what would be done in a dictatorship, that they should realize how far they have come with the issue and that they should stop.
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The students refuse to let it end and the one most affected by this dynamic pulls out a gun and points it at the teacher, telling him that The Wave is alive, shooting a classmate to be taken seriously. The teacher gets him to put the gun down but Tim kills himself with a shot in the mouth.
The police take the professor to the police station and the professor in the police car makes a face of shock and horror.
German actors Jürgen Vogel (a star of German cinema), as Professor Rainer Wenger, and Frederick Lau as Tim are impressive in their roles, the former as the leftist professor obsessed with a project and the latter as an unstable student with no friends and in need of relevance.
The 2008 German film, based on the real life experience of Ron James who serves as the film's screenwriter, was directed by Dennis Gansel.
This is a significant film because it touches on issues such as autocracy, despotism, fascism and even Nazism where only one person has the freedom to rule without limitations, enacting and modifying laws at will.
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The theme of autocracy and political indoctrination is something that unfortunately today year 2022 I am seeing in my country Venezuela, and it is up to us parents to take care of future generations and educate them so that they do not fall into the traps and false promises that these political regimes have brought to humanity.
This is my participation in the initiative Cine TV Contest #38 - Favorite Political Movie or Television Show Link Here.
I hope that this publication has been to the liking of everyone in the community and that it makes us reflect on the political education of our youth. Greetings to all and good luck to all participants.