A teacher begins a group on the concept of Autocracy and goes about (innocently) getting his students to conform.Things get out of hand, in a very predictable fashion.Essentially belonging to a group can be delightful, yet castigating and ignoring outsiders has it's drawbacks. Well done indeed.The fact that this is German lends some credence but this feels like it relies far too much on the subjects (and possibly the audience too) being teenagers, as it really feels like a lot of teenagers acting like teenagers -- one of the initial group drops out simply because the 'uniform' doesn't suit her -- and the many expected graffiti and partying scenes get annoying very quickly.The concept is still largely unbelievable in a modern world, and the script does little to convince otherwise.

More than a great movie, the Wave is a great story. Although it is based on real events, I did my homework and the story of the movie is much older that the film would make you think. It is based on an experiment conducted in 1967 by an American teacher who wanted to demonstrate how easily a movement similar to the Nazis could get ignited again. The movie is socially magnificent. It shows you how a group works and functions in unity under certain circumstances, and how easily individuals lose their ability to think outside the boundaries set by the group they have formed themselves. What I enjoyed is the fact that there was tension throughout, and you kept asking yourself how far would the group go and when the teacher who started it would find himself unable to control the force of the Wave. The Wave may not be the best movie you'll ever see, but it's well worth a watch.

The Wave. It is a German movie and based on a social experiment by a teacher on its students that goes out of control. It works as a study of human behavior that manipulating mind of many at once is not a rocket science.The Wave is interesting because of its authenticity, its well etched characters, sharp dialogs and most importantly the underlined idea. Jürgen Vogel playing the accused and victim of the wrong doing does well and few key students characters support him well. As a nitpicking, what movie lacks is an unpredictable climax after surprising and engaging development of the story.I am going with strong 7 out of 10 for The Wave. Given the idea, it could have been much more impactful but still it has enough to entertain you and make you think at the same time.

Politics happens at society, not at a person's brain. All forms of political regimes serve a purpose, and those ruling a given society are the ones who say what purpose is that. Nazism was an autocracy, but its essence was and still is to fight socialism, because the ruling classes of Germany (though it was born in Sweden, Nazism reached its peak in Germany) were and still are the capitalists. Today, Germany fancies it got totally rid of Nazism, but the truth is that only the forms are different, the essence is the same. Just look at what German capital is doing to Greece, Spain and other weak economies - and how Germans explain the economic troubles of these countries: they are "lazy", undisciplined peoples. Gansel plays on us the same trick Hitler played on Germans: it doesn't matter what class you belong to, you can reunite with all the other persons that have the same "blood" as you, even if this "blood" is an "ersatz" one. You only need to be careful with your personal idiosyncrasies... The film only proves that anarchism and fascism are birds of the same feather.