Neil and I saw Die Welle on the weekend. It’s based on a true story, and in this version the seemingly ultra left-leaning teacher Rainer Wenger sets up an experiment with his students to see if fascism could thrive in Germany today.
At first the students are completely sceptical, but once the experiment starts, many of them are wholly absorbed in The Wave (the name of their group) — especially the social outcast, Tim, who finds a real sense of belonging as The Wave ends up becoming a real phenomenon.
You can see where this is going. I don’t actually need to spell it out for you, do I — it’s got a fairly predictable plot, but it’s still a decent film. It was also interesting to note that German neds are pretty much the same as Scottish neds.
(Neil drew my attention to this film because I’d told him about something I’d heard about in my Psychology class, the Stanford prison experiment. That was really fascinating.)