The Wave () is a 2008 German socio-political thriller film directed by Dennis Gansel and starring Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Jennifer Ulrich and Max Riemelt in the leads. It is based on Ron Jones' social experiment The Third Wave and Todd Strasser's novel The Wave. The film was produced by Christian Becker for Rat Pack Filmproduktion. The movie was successful in German cinemas, and 2.3 million people watched it in the first ten weeks after its release.
In the film, a history teacher starts an experiment in manipulation of the masses, while trying to teach his class about autocracy. The students unwittingly start embracing fascism.
Plot A political sciences teacher, Rainer Wenger, is forced to teach a class on autocracy, despite being an anarchist and wanting to teach the class on anarchy. When his students, the third generation after the Second World War,Jeff Dawson ...salutes a hit German film ... Sunday Times 31 Aug 2008 do not believe that a dictatorship could be established in modern Germany, he starts an experiment to demonstrate how easily the masses can be manipulated. He begins by demanding that all students address him as "Herr Wenger", as opposed to Rainer,Note: This is actually the usual way for German students to address teachers. In itself, it is not specifically authoritarian; in this case, it means that Rainer Wenger had before been a highly unusually informal teacher who changes that policy now. and places students with poor grades beside students with good grades — purportedly so they can learn from one another and become better as a whole. When speaking, they must stand and give short, direct answers. Wenger shows his students the effect of marching together in the same rhythm, motivating them by suggesting that they are superior to the anarchy class, which is below them. Wenger suggests a uniform of a white shirt and jeans, to remove class distinction and further unite the group. A student in the class named Mona argues it will remove individuality, but she is dismissed. Another student in the class named Karo shows up to class without the uniform and is ostracized. The students decide among themselves they need a name, deciding on "Die Welle" (The Wave). Karo suggests another name, but she is the only person in the class who votes for it.
The group is shown to grow closer together, and former bullies Sinan and Bomber are shown to reform, protecting Tim, the class outcast, from a pair of anarchists demanding he sell them drugs. Sinan also creates a distinctive logo for the group, while Bomber creates a salute. Tim becomes very attached to the group, having finally become an accepted member of a social group. He burns all of his brand-name clothes, after a discussion about how large corporations do not take responsibility for their actions. Karo and Mona protest the actions of the group, and Mona, disgusted with how her classmates are embracing fascism, leaves the project group. Her other classmates do not see the connection with fascism and continue attending the class. The members of The Wave begin spray-painting their logo around town at night, having parties where only Wave members are allowed to attend, and ostracizing and tormenting anyone not in their group.
When Tim and his group of new friends are confronted by a group of angry punks (including those that Tim faced previously), Tim pulls a Walther PP pistol, causing them to back down. Tim explains to his shocked friends that the pistol only fires blanks. Tim later shows up at Wenger's house, offering to be his bodyguard. Although he declines his offer, Wenger still invites Tim in for dinner; this puts further strain on his already tense relationship with his wife, Anke, who thinks his experiment has gone too far. Wenger finally asks Tim to leave his house, only to find the next morning that Tim had slept outside on his doorstep. Anke, upset upon learning this, tells Wenger to stop the experiment immediately. Wenger accuses her of being jealous and insults her dependency on pills. Shocked, Anke leaves him, saying the Wave has made him into a terrible person.
Karo continues her opposition to the Wave, earning the anger of many in the group, who asks her boyfriend, Marco, to do something about it. A water polo competition is due to happen later that day, and Wenger asks the Wave to show up in support of the team. Karo and Mona, denied entry to the competition by members of The Wave, sneak in another way in order to distribute anti-Wave fliers. Members of the Wave notice this and scramble to retrieve the papers before anybody reads them. In the chaos, Sinan starts a fight with an opposing team member, with the two almost drowning each other as a result. Members of the Wave in the stands begin to violently shove one another. After the match, Marco confronts Karo and accuses her of causing the fight. She replies that the Wave has brainwashed him completely. He slaps Karo, causing her to get a nosebleed. Unsettled by his own behaviour, Marco approaches Wenger and asks him to stop the project. Wenger seemingly agrees and calls a rally for the Wave members for the following day in the school's auditorium.
Once in the rally, Wenger has the doors locked and begins whipping the students into a fervour. When Marco protests, Wenger calls him a traitor and orders the students to bring him to the stage for punishment. However, Wenger turns out to have been acting and was using this meeting to test the students and to see how extreme the Wave has become. Wenger declares that he is disbanding the Wave, but Dennis argues that they should try to salvage the good parts of the movement. Wenger points out there is no way to remove the negative elements of fascism. Seeing the movement falling apart right in front of his very eyes, Tim suffers a mental breakdown and pulls out a gun, refusing to accept the Wave is over as he does not want to lose all that he's gained. When Bomber says the gun only fires blanks and tries to take it, Tim shoots him, revealing it has live rounds. When Tim asks why he shouldn't shoot Wenger too, Wenger says that without him, there would be no one to lead the Wave and it would just die anyway. Utterly consumed by despair, Tim abruptly shoots himself in the head, preferring to commit suicide than go on living without the movement.
Horrified, Wenger cradles his corpse and looks on at how his actions have resulted in his whole class being scarred for the rest of their lives. The film ends with Wenger being arrested by the police and driven away, Bomber being taken away to the hospital, and Marco and Karo being re-united; the final shot shows Wenger in the back of a police car, staring blankly into the camera, a look of distress on his face.
Cast Jürgen Vogel as Rainer Wenger, the main character and teacher who started the experiment with his class. Frederick Lau as Tim Stoltefuss, an insecure and mentally unstable boy having problems with his family. At the beginning of the film he is pictured as a drug dealer until The Wave project starts. Then he becomes a committed member and finds new friends. Max Riemelt as Marco, a strong boy who plays in Wenger's water polo team. He is Karo's boyfriend. Jennifer Ulrich as Karo, a diligent and intelligent student. She protests against The Wave and, because of this, she has intense rows with Marco and her friends. Cristina do Rego as Lisa, a shy girl who becomes more self-confident thanks to The Wave. She is best friends with Karo, but later they have an argument when Karo protests against The Wave. Christiane Paul as Anke Wenger, the wife of Rainer who teaches in the same school but leaves him after seeing how much damage The Wave is affecting both the school and their students. Elyas M'Barek as Sinan, a student of Turkish descent and member of the water polo team. He is Bomber's best friend. Elyas M'Barek had earlier appeared in Gansel's film Mädchen, Mädchen. Maximilian Vollmar as Bomber, a bully who reforms thanks to The Wave and befriends Tim. Maximilian Mauff as Kevin, an upper-class student who clashes with The Wave at first until he joins the group for social reasons as he loses his status. Jacob Matschenz as Dennis, a student who comes from the GDR. He becomes a member of The Wave, like most of his classmates. Ferdinand Schmidt-Modrow as Ferdi Tim Oliver Schultz as Jens Amelie Kiefer as Mona Odine Johne as Maja Fabian Preger as Kaschi Tino Mewes as Schädel Maxwell Richter as Anarchist Liv Lisa Fries as Laura Alexander Held as Tim's father Johanna Gastdorf as Tim's mother Dennis Gansel as Martin Maren Kroymann as Dr. Kohlhage
Background The Wave is not the only movie to convert a social experiment conducted in the United States into a fictionalized plot. The Stanford prison experiment of 1971 was adapted for the 2001 production Das Experiment by Oliver Hirschbiegel, and the 2015 production directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, The Stanford Prison Experiment. Gansel's Wave is based on teacher Ron Jones's "Third Wave" experiment, which took place at a Californian school in 1967. Because his students did not understand how something like National Socialism could even happen, he founded a totalitarian, strictly-organized "movement" with harsh punishments that was led by him autocratically. The intricate sense of community led to a wave of enthusiasm not only from his own students, but also from students from other classes who joined the program later. Jones later admitted to having enjoyed having his students as followers. To eliminate the upcoming momentum, Jones aborted the project on the fifth day and showed the students the parallels towards the Nazi youth movements.Christa Hanetseder: Lehrer gegen Vorurteile. Zwei Experimente mit unerwarteter Dynamik In: ph akzente Nr. 4/2008, S. 16Irene Jung: Keiner kann sagen, er hätte von nichts gewusst. In: Hamburger Abendblatt, 10. März 2008, S. 3
In 1976, Jones published a narrative based on those experiences titled The Third Wave, which was made into a television movie of the same title in 1981. In the same year, author Todd Strasser, writing under the pen-name "Morton Rhue", published his book "The Wave" (a novelization of the television movie), which was published in Germany in 1984 and has since enjoyed great success as a school literature text. It has sold a total of over 2.5 million copies.Ina Hochreuther: Die Schule und die Diktatur In: Stuttgarter Zeitung, 13. März 2008, S. 32 Furthermore, the 1981 movie is available at almost all public media centers.Ekkehard Knörrer: Der Mensch ist eben auch nur eine Ratte im Labor In: taz, 12. März 2008, S. 15 The story has also influenced many plays and role plays worldwide.
The screenplay is based on an article written by Ron Jones in which he talks about the experiment and how he remembers it. The rights to the story which belonged to Sony were given over to Dennis Gansel for the production of a German movie.Dennis Gansel im Gespräch mit dem Hamburger Abendblatt, 10. März 2008, S. 3: „An den psychologischen Mechanismen hat sich nichts geändert“ As a consequence, Todd Strasser, whose novel popularized the material in Germany, and the publisher Ravensburg, did not receive direct revenues from the film project.Daniel Kothenschulte: Der freie Wille In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 13. März 2008, S. 33 Gansel was working on the book for one year until he asked Peter Thorwarth to join him as a co-author. The screenplay moves the experiment, which was carried out in California in the 1960s, to present day Germany. The specific location is never mentioned explicitly as it stands for Germany as a whole.