Wave of Flies

So I was invited to see this new German film the wave at the MIFF today, not having any idea what it was going to be like, only going on a friend's recommendation. It was nearly sold out, and turned out to be a pretty amazing experience. Basic gist is a sort of cutting edge school in Berlin(?) is running this week long program to promote 'the virtues of democracy', where each student can sign up to a program of an extreme political idealism (autocracy and anarchy are the only two mentioned). The teacher of the classroom Herr Wenger sets up the class with himself as leader, and begins to give the class instructions such as 'strength through discipline'. The class soon evolves into a movement called 'The Wave', and begins to take on a life of its own. Wenger is shocked as he begins to see the power he weilds, and how extreme The Wave becomes as students are so motivated as to enforce their beliefs onto others and discriminate those who are not members. It all culminates in a confronting climax, which made me question my own values. In Australia we have no fascist history, being one of the oldest democracies and rating as
one of the current most democratic nations. But what says fascism doesn't walk among us? It is the whole 'lord of the flies' scenario: Given the right circumstances, we would all commit disturbing and radical acts to defend beliefs we didn't know we possessed, just in the name of following the group, or following orders, or mainly just fear. This is why groups like the 3rd Reich and Khmer Rouge were able to exist, the mass brainwashing which occured was because an aspect of this absolute control, strict discipline and superiority of a group over everything else appeals to a part of all of us, not just a particular race or ethnic minority. I am unable to say I could not ever act in this way, dispite my knowledge of the topic.
Given the right ammount of fear people will commit to anything to protect themselves. Those who are most fearful are most dangerous, because of the lengths they are prepared to go to to alleviate that sickening feeling of fear. In the end it all comes down to survival of the fittest, and the fact that man is corrupt, and
humanity is the devil. In our position of rich nation in the western world we can frown upon nations which feed dictators, we can writhe in horror while we sit back and watch others commit genocide and ethnic cleansing, but to quote author Chuck Palahniuk: 'It is only once we have lost everything, that we are able to do anything.' I rate this movie highly for anyone who is prepared to confront themselves, and to have a real cinematic experience.