Die Welle

The English name is translated 'the Wave'. This movie's in German, as my German is obviously not good enough to watch it straight and the English subtitle is mystically missing (hope it will be on the internet soon though), I actually had to change my windows setting to make it able to encode non-Unicode Chinese so I could load a Chinese subtitle and I was finally watching it, and change it back after finishing. The effort is all worth it though.

The movie's recomposed from a true story about a high school teacher's experiment on his students on autocracy, the original story started 1967 in California's Palo Alto Cubberley High while in the movie the story is relocated within Germany. The use of simple but strict discipline, uniform and the collective consciousness, which made himself a autocrat to the group in a stunning five days. After all these the mind control slipped in without the conscious of even the teacher himself, the students have all changed. They become adulatory, selfish and not even conscious of what they are doing as the concept of a group had gone too far in their minds.

The students named the group as 'die Welle', established a website, made their own logo and spread it, they even made up a gesture for the group and tries to exclude and isolate everyone that opposes the motivation, all spontaneously. And they finally become some kind of gang that even go out on streets to fight other gangs.

The ending is obviously not happy. As the teacher realized he is going a bit too far after all those five days, he demonstrated the harm that had already done on their students, to show that Nazism and Fascism is already successfully established in the group and how disastrous it can be if they simply allow this going on. Some of the students, unfortunately, had already gone too far that one of the students even regard 'die Welle' as his whole life that he refuse to end this farce. He's got a gun somehow and after hurting a classmate he shot himself in the throat as 'die Welle' is dead and there's nothing left on earth for him. The teacher is arrested for going too far and the story ends.

The movie thrilled me, deeply. What is most shocking to me is that most of the methods used to achieve autocracy in this movie, I've actually been through while I was back in China. From elementary school we are asked to practice stepping simultaneously, sit properly, raising hands before allowed to speak in class, compulsorily wear uniforms on school days, arranging seats so that 'good' students are usually sit next 'bad' students, elimination of individuality, be encouraged to tattle against even the closest friends... And I believe that this is how the Chinese government achieve its autocracy, and most of the Chinese people are not aware what they have been through and they are still mind-controlled by the government after growing up and even til death. Hey, these students are treated this way when they are like 16 or 17 and there are people who know this is wrong and tries to stop it while others can be woken by demonstrating the harm done to them, and they have the right to choose another subject in the first place; every single Chinese kids are treated this way since they are 6 or 7, totally innocent and haven't got the foggiest idea of democracy or autocracy, every single one that oppose such brain washing is either tortured or made suffered til they surrender or be isolated and excluded for the rest of his/her life in China.

Is this obvious enough?