<p> The dangerous potential of mass movements and collective identity is the subject of <em>The Wave</em> by German director Dennis Gansel (<em>Before the Fall</em>). The thought-provoking film (out on DVD) imagines a classroom gone berserk as high school students embrace their instructor's object lesson in autocracy too literally. Seemingly off the top of his head, the unconventionally hip teacher (he wears a Ramones T-shirt to school) imposes an authoritarian regimen on his class to teach them how it feels to live in a society dominated by a charismatic leader. He encourages his pupils to adopt a name for their impromptu movement (they call it the Wave), a uniform of white shirts and jeans, an emblem (a relentless-looking tidal wave) and a sense of solidarity. The outcome of his improvised lesson is unfortunate and unintended. </p> <p>The concept is intriguing and the roles believably played by the mostly youthful cast. However, The Wave demands a difficult suspension of disbelief over the rapid rise of its eponymous movement. A one-week class provides the setting and the framework for the tale, which transforms Monday's largely apathetic, materialistic, cynical students into Friday's Nuremberg rally. A semester is believable, but a full-blown fascist movement in one week is hard to credit even in the flash mob era. The conditions that lead to the Third Reich are absent from the materially comfortable if emotionally unsatisfied students of Herr Wenger's class. </p> <p>In spite of this, <em>The Wave</em> moves along at a satisfying pace and the drama is compelling for showing the many attractions a cause (or a cult) might have for self-centered youth in a permissive society with few boundaries and no direction save the dance club. </p>
