With ‘The Wave’ in Irish cinemas this week, Movies.ie has copies of the original book up for grabs!
In selected Irish cinemas is the latest pic from German writer-director Dennis Gansel ‘The Wave’.
Based on an incident, which took place in 1967 at a high school in Palo Alto, California, writer-director Gansel transports the story to Germany, where Rainer Wegner, a popular high school teacher, finds himself relegated to teaching autocracy as part of the school’s project week, he’s less than enthusiastic. So are his students, who greet the prospect of studying fascism yet again with apathetic grumbling: “The Nazis sucked. We get it.” Struck by the teenagers’ complacency and unwitting arrogance, Rainer devises an unorthodox experiment. But his hastily conceived lesson in social orders and the power of unity soon grows a life of its own.
In probing the underpinnings of fascism, ‘The Wave’ is far from a social-studies lesson. As with his previous film, ‘Before the Fall’, director Dennis Gansel fashions an energetic, gripping drama that cuts through superficial ideological interrogatives and goes straight for the veins–the human psychologies and individual behaviours that contribute to collective movements. In unpeeling the emotional layers and contradictions of his characters (the need to belong, to be empowered, to escape social distinctions), Gansel offers a humanistic perspective on the terrifying irony that these students may welcome the very things they denounce.
To celebrate the release of ‘The Wave’, Movies.ie has copies of the original Todd Strasser book up for grabs. To win a copy, just answer the question below:
Q: Who wrote the original book ‘The Wave’?
Send your answers to Prizes@Movies.ie – remember to include your Movies.ie username!
‘The Wave’ is in selected Irish cinemas now.