By: Frank

 

In 1967, a teacher in a Palo Alto high school used an unorthodox method for showing his students how a huge group of people in Nazi Germany could have succumbed to the evil leadership of Adolf Hilter.

 

He started a movement of sorts, calling it The Third Wave, whereby he requested that his history class chant slogans and salute him, and then the enthusiastic kids out to recruit other students from around the school.  After a for short days, by the teacher's own account, the experiment spun out of control, resulting in students mindlessly joining en masse and intimidating those who spoke against their movement.

 

The Wave is an hour-long, made-for-TV telling of this strange tale, with all of the characteristics of an ABC Afterschool Special. There's mellow dramatic direction complete with cheesy orchestral punctuation; the script is transparent and force-fed, like a whittled-down feature designed to squeeze through 15 minutes of commercials; the acting is uninspired and seemingly paycheck-motivated.

 

It's difficult to asses if the script is true-to-life because the original story was not well documented by anyone other than the teacher himself, who obviously could have been motivated by ego or fame to exaggerate his unusual story.

 

But it's equally difficult to believe that the "movement" could have escalated in such a short time, if at all, to the extent the film suggests. Virtually the entire school pledges allegiance to a teacher who offers them a revolution built of a chant and a signature hand motion, and nothing more. Hitler, with all of his monstrosities, gave the Nazis an evil ideology that lemmings could sink their teeth into.

 

Which suggests that either American teenagers are flimsier than Nazis (it was California, after all), or the real story is more than The Wave's teleplay writer could handle. At one point, a teen protagonist's girlfriend declares her confusion with The Wave: "I can't believe how crazy everyone's gotten." It's the only realistic reaction to the shallow mindlessness of the other characters.

 

Which is not to say that evil isn't contagious, just that it's complexities are beyond the purview of this short, teen-marketed take.

 

Despite its poor execution, the story has a certain innate interest that make it worth spending 45 minutes watching. It's unfortunate that it was carried out in the spotty made-for-TV market, but it's the only pop-culture telling of a fascinating event.

 

Hollywood's modern obsession with pillaging its past is becoming more upsetting by the month, but if we must live through it, The Wave would make an inspiring remake vehicle for the right director. But "right director" and Hollywood mix as well as well as "right president" and the United States, so it's probably smart not to tempt fate. Let's leave that to the Germans, who, according to reports through the e-grapevine, have produced a good remake.

 

The Wave is uploaded on YouTube as of this posting. I searched "the wave nazi" and it came right up.

 

 

 

 

2/5 Ginger Nerds