Fridge / The Wave (2008)

• Fridge Horror: Watch carefully during the ending. Rainer is in the back of the police car, clearly anguished. Then, in the last few seconds, he seems to see something beyond the camera, and seems to have an expression of shocked realization. Did he realize, at that moment, that his path clearly parallelled that of Adolf Hitler's? In the 1920s, Hitler went too far and banked on the Nazi movement's popularity to help carry him through to concluding a putsch against the Bavarian government. He was, however, arrested and thrown in jail, and could be considered responsible for the deaths of several Nazi party members that day. Not so different from Rainer's responsibility for engendering the potential for internecine violence and death! One thus also wonders if some students might keep "The Wave" alive for when Rainer is released from prison. Kind of scary...
• Despite the obvious dramatizations, Ron Jones thinks this film is a very convincing account of his original experiment. Let that sink in.