Die Welle

It is not often that the Movie is Better Than The Book. Despite what my students say.

As I've already mentioned, I'm teaching The Wave to Year 10 this term. On top of their graphic novel speeches and our Friday discussion of The Chaser and Satire. They are a top class, and most of them are really mature minded and very intelligent. This unit is about a comparative study between the book and the film.

They didn't much like the book. And quite rightly too. The only thing that really interested me about the book is the subject matter - teacher experiments on his class with the notions of autocracy, to disasterous effects. Plus that whole compulsory obsession with the Holocaust that it seems only English teachers have (or maybe the obsession has just been eeked out of the other teachers (esp the History ones) because of restrictive and prescriptive syllabi that lead to rote learning and other such pedagogical disasters... Oops, got a little ranty there). The novel is not really well written, the characterisations and descriptions are less than engaging and the shifting perspective is beige at best.

And last night I watched the film.

The originial incident happened in California, and as such, the book is set in the US. But the film is in Germany. Making this story less about "dictatorships could happen where you are" and more about "dictatorships could still happen in a society that knows they are bad news". The whole question of German guilt is always one I have found fascinating, and the film touches on in, without making it the subject of the story.

Jorgen Vogel is fantastic as Rainer Wenger the teacher who is torn between professionalism, the respect of his stuffy workmates and the connection with his students (hmmm...?). The saturated colours, punk soundtrack and Wenger's fantastic collection of tshirts, combined with the hand held camera work and low budget European beauty give this film edge, character and street cred.

It diverges from the book quite a bit, which is a good thing. The film makers have taken what little character development is in the novel and run with it, creating characters that are annoyingly adolescent and readl.
Plus, it is a waterpolo film - and there aren't many of them about!

The weak ending of the book is completely re-worked to make it 21st century relevant.

So long as I can get my Year 1o "smart" kids to read subtitles, it should be a hit!