A fascinating, if imperfect, thought experiment taken to its logical (and upsetting) conclusion. The film uses a compulsory after-school project in a German high school as a societal microcosm and positions the teacher, normally a man who revels in punk rock, irreverence, and anarchic principles, to stir it up into an autocracy all in the name of making a point, an answer to the defiant statement one of his students makes early on in the film: "There could never be another dictatorship in Germany". What starts out as the students reluctantly playing along burns brighter and brighter until it reaches a fever pitch, at which point no one's quite sure they understand the thing they've created together anymore. While this does require a good deal of imagination stretching, as this whole project takes place in just one week, if you allow for the purposes of drama to suppose that these kids are just bored enough to give themselves over entirely in the span of 5 days to something, anything to fill the hole that boredom and freedom has given them, it just about works. And even if it doesn't, it's a hell of an interesting question, and an even more interesting suggestion of an answer, anyway.
It's certainly better than motherfucking Only God Forgives.
