PÖFF: Die Welle and Waltz with Bashir

Here are my thoughts on the next two movies I saw today. They were both powerful films.

Die Welle (The Wave) is a film about totalitarianism and how people can find in authoritarianism the missing structure or fulfilment. I would say it was a cross between the Estonian film Klass and the german film Das Experiment. I have been interested in the impact of totalitarianism and what makes people act in this way for a long time (a good source is Hannah Arendt’s work), and this film dealt with the topic quite bluntly.

Waltz with Bashir is a powerful anti-war documentary, with a distinct animated style. It was almost entirely in Hebrew, but the stories and the scences were vivid. A great, great film with a great mission.