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Closeup of Mr. Wenger's face at the movie's finale

posted 14 years ago by Friedrich von Glower
40 replies | jump to latest

In the final frames of this movie (at least in the version I've seen) we see a closeup of Mr. Wenger's face and it looks like he suddenly notices something in front of him and is pretty shocked about it. However, we never get to see what he sees.

I expected him to see that some students were still going on with The Wave, maybe by spraying the logo onto a wall while he was driven past it.

But maybe I'm totally misinterpreting this scene and was it only meant to show that he suddenly got aware of all the bad things his experiment caused. Anybody has any ideas on this?

[–] vincent_spano 14 years ago

I had exactly the same questionig as you had.

To my mind, Mr Wenger's face is first appalled as he faces the disaster that he himself generated : the serious injury of a student, the death of another one, the traumatism for hundreds of them, and most probably legal proceedings for him...

Basically, he's in bad trouble!

And suddenly, his tormented face seems to focus and lighten up...

My guess is : he realizes that he may use the wave to sort him out. In his mind blossoms a wicked plan to manipulate the wave followers and escape the tricky situation...

[–] jeffriley_1 13 years ago

Vincent - and others in this thread - I'm glad you noticed this because it intrigued me also. I also read it as you did that he realised he could use the movement to salvage something for him from the destruction. The other thought that I had is that it struck me it was a little like the set back Hitler had with his failed coup which saw him out of jail within a short time and with increased credibility.

[–] gravityplanx 11 years ago

I had to authorize my account for forum access just to reply to this. And your comment is 3 years old, so I doubt you even care. Meh.

No. Absolutely no. That's so incredibly wrong.

He calls together the wave to inform apologize for how out of hand it all had gotten and to try to dissuade further activities/break up what was going on. In doing so, he witnesses one student get shot and another kill himself.

To say that again: He was already trying to break the wave up and then one of his students killed himself over it.

And you think his response to all of that was "Oh yippee! I can get away with it!"? Why? Did watching Tim kill himself make Wenger warm and fuzzy inside to the point where he wanted to inflict the same onto another student?

[–] gapple-3 14 years ago

I was in no doubt at all that he was realising the full implications of what he had set in motion. Just before this he had buried his face in his hands, obviously contemplating the enormity of what had happened, and then blank horror showed on his face. I thought it was a brilliant ending!

[–] WillBarks 14 years ago

Actually, I thought he was looking straight at the audience, implying: "Would you have done it differently?"
Or, more freely interpreted, like making the audience a bad conscience: "The seed of fascism is in all of us! Realise before it's too late!"

[–] tjejen 10 years ago

No, they never broke the 4th wall. It was like the commenter before you said, that this was the moment when he realised the sheer horror of what had just happened. Not just the death of one of his students but also how easily things spiraled out of control in just a couple of days! His students turned out as susceptible to group pressure and easily led as the Nazis were, and they would have gone down a similar path if he had let them. Truly horrifying.

[–] kiddo-15 14 years ago

On this matter I found this answer: "The expression on the face of the teacher at the end of the German film is designed to make the audience, everyone, consider their own capacity for evil, says Jones. "It puts it into a universal context. We're all capable of this nightmare.", quote from an Anathea Lipsett article, full text http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/16/schoolsworldwide.film

I'm going to hell... again.
Dean Winchester

[–] bella_furie 14 years ago

That's fascinating and saved me a lot of time looking for the origin of the film's story. Interesting that the name of the movement stayed the same - The Wave. It sounds unsinister, but powerful.

[–] kiddo-15 14 years ago

You are welcome!
It's also fascinating that the real event happened in just five days, when I started looking for the true story I didn't expected to be so short.
And I found other eperiments more creepy, too. In 2006, they tried The Wave in younger students, but the parents protested aganist it, it was too cruel for kids.

I'm going to hell... again.
Dean Winchester

[–] inspired-kiwi 14 years ago

Re: It's fascinating the real event happened in just five days - this makes me think of the Stanford Prison experiment - the effects on the participants in that experiment happened very very quickly too.

[–] franks-10 13 years ago

Fascinating! Because, FASCISM is bad, mmmmkay??

If only the teacher had indeed introduced any element of fascism that is, which he DID in the original experiment, but not in this godawful adaption of it.

Wearing uniforms, physical exercise, salutations, nothing _the teacher taught_ in this 2008 version was fascism. The kids were all just thoroughly messed up.. Nowadays, sadly, it might be more true to reality today though. But it's NOT fascism!

The worst kind of movie or story, are the one that try to shove its morals down your throat. Then they end up like this..

[–] tjejen 10 years ago

He was indeed teaching fascism but in a more subtle than you think. Systematically ignoring the one student who didn't comply with the dress code for example. Giving them a fake sense of empowerment by equating compliance with discipline, etc.

What he failed to do was make the students reflect on the effect of these tricks on their own psychology, they all completely missed the point of the exercise because he didn't explain it. It was really dumb to only have them write about their experience on the last day when there was no time left in theme week for critical reflection for instance.

[–] Whatever1323 14 years ago

I can't understand though what the guy did wrong. It was an experiment with good intentions that mostly was directed towards a society that works together. He also admitted it himself in the end that "The Wave" has gone off from the main purpose which was to open the doors for everyone and not shut it down to people who do not accept their ideals.

I don't blame the professor, I blame the parents who throw their kids in the corner. For those kind of kids, opportunities like this seem to be their entire life and they alter the intentions so that they will be the center of attention.

[–] cbmt 14 years ago

True, parents should be fully aware of the actions of their kids but it is also true that when you are so young you make mistakes and when mistakes are made as a group, they seem natural.

The Wave is a brilliant movie, it shows how "easy" it is for an adult to manipulate, to brainwash the young generation, even when he has no idea of what he's actually doing.

Also this movie is of course very similar to Das Experiment, it shows how quickly normal human beings go from living a normal life to do things they would have never thought of. A previous poster said "the audience is drawn into the wave along with the students", that's so true, even if you know that what they are doing is not entirely correct and "legal", you still support it.

And yes, if they ever make a movie on Cesc, Elyas M'Barek will be the one :)

[–] tjejen 10 years ago

[quote]you still support it./quote]

Em no, we kept facepalming at every single one those moments, there was really not much to support at all!

[–] Mnemosyne-9 14 years ago

hahahaha!! brilliant!! :-D

"Power to the people who punish bad cinema!!" - Cecil B. Demented for president!!

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] break-stoof 14 years ago

i see the question has been answered now anyway, but that's exactly what I thought. He looked straight at us with that horrified look on his face, like he was realising that every single person looking back at him was just as susceptible to The Wave as his students were, and what that could potentially mean. But nah, we're all too smart for that right? ;)

[–] a-movie-fan 14 years ago

Everyone I think has in some way or other hit on the right answer above but I also thought when I first saw his face change, 'Oh my god, there's a couple of thousand Anarchists blocking the road ahead and he knows exactly what they're about to do to him!!

Brilliant movie, brilliant performances, brilliant story... one we should ALL heed; and why can't we see ourselves as one large group (that we are!), to be kind and considerate to, without the need for a group and/or symbol to hide behind?

~ My Voting History ~ http://tinyit.info/602

[–] rthomp-8 14 years ago

I just watched the film and came to the message board to see if anyone had asked just this question.

I thought it was a great ending. To me it looked like something had just dawned on him. Perhaps it was a realisation that he could have taken a different path and that he wouldn't have been sitting in the back of a police car if he had.