The Wave (Germany, 2008) and Hunger (UK/Ireland, 2008): Fascism & Faeces (1/3) By Philip Wincolmlee Barnes

(1/3), (2/3), (2/3).

The writer formerly known as a performance artist takes a winter trip to the Hull Screen (and he only had to pay once...) European cinema has a substantial post-war tradition of coming to terms with, exploring or challenging 20th Century fascism and, in particular, Germany's uneasy goose-stepping heritage, its subsequent national 'identity crisis', and its more recent spasms of political unrest.

For example, the flirtatious - and some might say notorious - excesses of Night Porter (Dirk Bogarde in self-destructive, and unlikely, kinky fun with a former concentration camp internee); Pasolini's orgiastic Salo (which updates De Sade's most exhaustive work into a 20th Century decadent milieu); several of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's late 1970's films deal with post-war malaise and discontent (The Third Generation, Autumn in Germany); Downfall, an ambitious feature about Hitler's last days in his Berlin bunker (and an international hit); the claustrophobic U-boat opus Das Boot (also much acclaimed).

More recently still the Red Army Faction, all tousled hair, firearms and tight trousers, have been revived for the delight - if that's the right word - for ultra left-leaning cinema audiences.

Dennis Gansel's The Wave (2008) is loosely based on events that took place in a high school in California (that bastion of all that is progressive - or ridiculous - depending upon one's stomach for the somewhat outlandish...), in which a charismatic teacher convinces his students to form a pseudo-fascistic sect.

Gansel doesn't find it too difficult (admittedly, not unsurprisingly) to transpose this story upon Germany's current blank generation youth, who appear to have no unifying rallying call (apart from the usual teenage preoccupations with drink, drugs and sex).

The film stars Jurgen Vogel as Rainer Wenger, the maverick teacher who instigates the unfolding psychodrama - with inevitably chaotic results. Wenger is one of those suspiciously 'with it' teachers (the kind who drop references to 'waccy baccy' or who might enthuse about the latest De La Soul LP, etc); with his skinhead, confidant swagger, tribal tattoos, and a fading Ramones T-shirt, he is clearly a loose cannon amid his much more staid colleagues. To hammer the point home, the film's opening sequence is of Wenger careering down suburban streets, car windows down, with loud rock music driving him - despite a curious absence of a mullet haircut - to attempt some in-car head banging. And he lives on a houseboat, which, I suppose, is another (rather obvious) visual indicator of his 'unconventional' status. So naturally he's popular with his impressionable students - which helps when trying to establish a new Reich in the 6th form. This alarming turn of events comes into play when Wenger is reluctantly assigned to teach a module on Autocracy, which rankles with him considerably - he would much rather be running classes on the principles of Anarchy instead. But he soon finds himself able to subvert his subject and, subsequently, his pupils.

He does this at a breakneck (and not very convincing, narrative-wise) speed: halfway through his first lesson he has already rearranged the desks from cosy group tables to old school - quite literally - single file authoritarian rows. And the students can't call him 'Rainer' anymore - it's strictly a deferential Mr.Wengerfrom here on - and they must put up their hands and be asked to stand before he allows them to speak.

There are one or two malcontents within this regime change but - as one must when running a tight ship - these elements are soon weeded out and socially ostracised. This is a prim, proper and liberal school where the kids actually seem to care about their homework and their grades, and this sinister and sudden ideological shift is initially presented as exciting and rebellious. An early classroom scene shows Mr. Wenger encouraging his pubescent troops to stamp their feet in unison, ostensibly to disrupt the classroom below (being administered by one of Wenger's teaching opponents) but, in actuality, to inculcate within them a herd-like militaristic mindset.

Continued .... Next Page (2/3)

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