Die Welle (Germany)
08-08-08, 02:14 AM
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Die Welle (Germany)
Dennis Gansel's Die Welle a.k.a The Wave is set to be released in Germany on October 9th. Winner of the Outstanding Feature Film Award (Bester Spielfilm) at this year's German Film Awards.
Official site and trailer:
http://www.welle.info/
Variety:
About as subtle as the system of autocratic government it decries, Dennis Gansel's "The Wave" delivers its message with more impact than insight. Partly drawn from the memorable 1981 stateside After-School Special of the same title, this forceful, super-slick German dramatization recounts a real-life high school experiment that went dangerously awry, although not as dangerously as depicted here. Riding a wave of positive buzz following its world premiere at Sundance, where rights sold to several territories, potential conversation-piece should do strong local biz and is ripe for another remake.
Though it's not mentioned in the writing credits, Morton Rhue's 1988 novel "The Wave" -- a fictional retelling of the 1967 experiment conducted by Palo Alto, Calif., history teacher William Ron Jones (who served as a consultant on the film) -- has become a staple of many a high school curriculum. In relocating the story to Germany, Gansel and co-scenarist Peter Thorwarth (drawing from Jones' original account and a 1981 teleplay) pointedly raise the question of whether a Third Reich-style regime could emerge again -- and find the answer to be an unambiguous yes.
A youngish guy with a shaven pate and a hip, unconventional style, Rainer Wenger (Juergen Vogel) is stuck lecturing on autocracy (he prefers anarchy) during the school's project week. He turns the lesson into a simulation, temporarily transforming his class of some 30 students into a microcosmic dictatorship.
Adopting drill-sergeant tactics, Rainer makes his students call him "Mr. Wenger"; rearranges seating so as to minimize cliquishness and maximize grade improvement; and proposes a uniform to eliminate class differences and individuality.
Far from resisting such strictures, the students embrace them quite readily, and for a while, the system -- dubbed "the Wave" -- seems to work. Marco (Max Riemelt) and Sinan (Elyas M'Barek) learn to play as a unit on the water polo team coached by Rainer (er, Mr. Wenger), while socially awkward Tim (Frederick Lau) stops getting bullied as his classmates come to his aid.
But as the Wave becomes the dominant presence on campus, pressuring others to join and scorning those who don't, violence begins to percolate and resistance begins to stir. Seeing her friends get carried away, Marco's girlfriend Karo (Jennifer Ulrich) drops out, while Tim becomes increasingly militant in his devotion to the Wave's cause.
Though it's robustly directed by Gansel (who previously explored the grooming of young fascists in "Before the Fall"), "The Wave" isn't really drama so much as demonstration, and it's interested in its characters only to the extent they can help prove its thesis. That's offset somewhat by the film's strong performances: Popular German thesp Vogel makes Rainer an appealing, misguided figure, while Ulrich and Lau are the standouts of a strong teen ensemble.
Tragic finale, which departs in a big way from what happened in the real-life experiment, feels at once calculated and predictable, leaving the viewer with little more than an unpleasant whiff of didacticism.
Production is aces, with vibrant widescreen camerawork, muscular editing and a dynamic rock soundtrack.
Camera (color, Arri widescreen), Torsten Breuer; editor, Ueli Christen; music, Heiko Maile; production designer, Knut Loewe; set decorator, Tilman Lasch; costume designer, Ivana Milos; sound (Dolby Digital), Tschangis Chahrokh; sound designer, Alexander Saal; stunt coordinator, Rainer Werner; line producers, Patty Barth, Peter Schiller; associate producer, Nina Maag; assistant director, Hendrik Holler; casting, Franziska Aigner-Kuhn. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema -- competing), Jan. 20, 2008. Running time: 106 MIN.
Though it's not mentioned in the writing credits, Morton Rhue's 1988 novel "The Wave" -- a fictional retelling of the 1967 experiment conducted by Palo Alto, Calif., history teacher William Ron Jones (who served as a consultant on the film) -- has become a staple of many a high school curriculum. In relocating the story to Germany, Gansel and co-scenarist Peter Thorwarth (drawing from Jones' original account and a 1981 teleplay) pointedly raise the question of whether a Third Reich-style regime could emerge again -- and find the answer to be an unambiguous yes.
A youngish guy with a shaven pate and a hip, unconventional style, Rainer Wenger (Juergen Vogel) is stuck lecturing on autocracy (he prefers anarchy) during the school's project week. He turns the lesson into a simulation, temporarily transforming his class of some 30 students into a microcosmic dictatorship.
Adopting drill-sergeant tactics, Rainer makes his students call him "Mr. Wenger"; rearranges seating so as to minimize cliquishness and maximize grade improvement; and proposes a uniform to eliminate class differences and individuality.
Far from resisting such strictures, the students embrace them quite readily, and for a while, the system -- dubbed "the Wave" -- seems to work. Marco (Max Riemelt) and Sinan (Elyas M'Barek) learn to play as a unit on the water polo team coached by Rainer (er, Mr. Wenger), while socially awkward Tim (Frederick Lau) stops getting bullied as his classmates come to his aid.
But as the Wave becomes the dominant presence on campus, pressuring others to join and scorning those who don't, violence begins to percolate and resistance begins to stir. Seeing her friends get carried away, Marco's girlfriend Karo (Jennifer Ulrich) drops out, while Tim becomes increasingly militant in his devotion to the Wave's cause.
Though it's robustly directed by Gansel (who previously explored the grooming of young fascists in "Before the Fall"), "The Wave" isn't really drama so much as demonstration, and it's interested in its characters only to the extent they can help prove its thesis. That's offset somewhat by the film's strong performances: Popular German thesp Vogel makes Rainer an appealing, misguided figure, while Ulrich and Lau are the standouts of a strong teen ensemble.
Tragic finale, which departs in a big way from what happened in the real-life experiment, feels at once calculated and predictable, leaving the viewer with little more than an unpleasant whiff of didacticism.
Production is aces, with vibrant widescreen camerawork, muscular editing and a dynamic rock soundtrack.
Camera (color, Arri widescreen), Torsten Breuer; editor, Ueli Christen; music, Heiko Maile; production designer, Knut Loewe; set decorator, Tilman Lasch; costume designer, Ivana Milos; sound (Dolby Digital), Tschangis Chahrokh; sound designer, Alexander Saal; stunt coordinator, Rainer Werner; line producers, Patty Barth, Peter Schiller; associate producer, Nina Maag; assistant director, Hendrik Holler; casting, Franziska Aigner-Kuhn. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema -- competing), Jan. 20, 2008. Running time: 106 MIN.
08-08-08, 03:05 AM
#2
Senior Member
Unless Gansel has something else to prove, the film is ill-placed, since German general public opinion views far-right organizations as unacceptable, due to WWII-generated feelings of guilt. Well, as long as it reflects a general human trait, it shouldn't matter that much.
Would be interesting to see if this transplant of an American social experiment in Europe is viable. A comparison comes to mind: the French social psychology professor showing up in Louis Verneuil's "I comme Icare", who actually depicted quite accurately the real experiments undergone by professor Stanley Milgram from Yale on obedience and submission to authority.
Would be interesting to see if this transplant of an American social experiment in Europe is viable. A comparison comes to mind: the French social psychology professor showing up in Louis Verneuil's "I comme Icare", who actually depicted quite accurately the real experiments undergone by professor Stanley Milgram from Yale on obedience and submission to authority.
08-26-09, 08:29 PM
#3
DVD Talk Gold Edition
BUMP
Got around to watching the UK DVD for this one. I thought it only average at best. In general it was a rather superficial treatment of the subject matter...by-the-numbers...and predictable. The film really didn't have much scope to it. I thought the spread of The Wave movement was going to be on a grander scale, but they don't really give the sense of it engulfing the entire campus. Sure a few dozen get caught up in the movement but you never see it in effect on a significant scale. I never got the sense of the number of total students in the school so I assumed it was a rather large population, yet those involved in The Wave never really seemed that great until maybe the final scene (even then the number is not much more than you can see in the poster art in the first post of this thread). Plus the story took place over only one week's time - at least I understood it - so I had a tough time believing the movement could catch on so quickly. The Variety review is accurate in that the film didn't offer much insight, and that it felt more like a demonstration than a true cinema worthy drama. Basically a message movie to say "see this could easily happen again", but it lacked entirely in depth, sophistication, and any significant character development...a cookie-cutter, simplistic, obvious depiction of the subject matter, and I never really felt drawn into the material. Heck, after writing what I wrote, I might've just talked myself into dropping it a notch or two on my grading scale.
Got around to watching the UK DVD for this one. I thought it only average at best. In general it was a rather superficial treatment of the subject matter...by-the-numbers...and predictable. The film really didn't have much scope to it. I thought the spread of The Wave movement was going to be on a grander scale, but they don't really give the sense of it engulfing the entire campus. Sure a few dozen get caught up in the movement but you never see it in effect on a significant scale. I never got the sense of the number of total students in the school so I assumed it was a rather large population, yet those involved in The Wave never really seemed that great until maybe the final scene (even then the number is not much more than you can see in the poster art in the first post of this thread). Plus the story took place over only one week's time - at least I understood it - so I had a tough time believing the movement could catch on so quickly. The Variety review is accurate in that the film didn't offer much insight, and that it felt more like a demonstration than a true cinema worthy drama. Basically a message movie to say "see this could easily happen again", but it lacked entirely in depth, sophistication, and any significant character development...a cookie-cutter, simplistic, obvious depiction of the subject matter, and I never really felt drawn into the material. Heck, after writing what I wrote, I might've just talked myself into dropping it a notch or two on my grading scale.
