Jojo Rabbit-I Can't Believe How Well Taika Waititi Pulled This Off
World War II has been covered to the point of nauseam. By some miracle of creativity, however, Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" is a wildly original dramady that examines the Third Reich in a humanistic manner that I didn't think was remotely possible. Adapted from Christine Leunens' "Caging Skies," we follow the story of Jojo, who adopts the title of Jojo Rabbit after being mocked by his peers for refusing to kill a bunny at a Nazi youth training camp. After being injured from bouncing a grenade off a tree with the aid of Jojo's imaginary friend Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo spends his remaining days working menial duties at home while his fellow Nazi scouts go off to fight the war. While home Jojo discovers a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in his attic. When getting to know Elsa, Jojo's entire viewpoint of prejudice begins to change.
Right off the bat, hearing that someone having Adolf Hitler as their imaginary friend should give you an idea for the kind of wacky film, this is going to be. Indeed, this isn't the first time Nazi Germany, let alone Hitler, has been mocked in cinema. A majority of Mel Brooks' career has made a farce of the fascists. Charlie Chaplin lampooned Hitler himself while also presenting a plea for love and an end to hatred with "The Great Dictator." Recently a film from Germany came out depicting what it would be like if Hitler was transported to our modern society in "Look Who's Back." What "Jojo Rabbit" contains that those films didn't including most dramatic works about the Nazi Regime is a sense of empathy for certain Nazis. Before you light your torches, let me explain.
There were Nazis in the Second World War who fundamentally disagreed with Hitler's ideas. We needn't go as far as to see Operation Valkyrie as an exemplification of that. "Jojo Rabbit," tells a warm-hearted tale in the coldest of settings making us see the Nazis who didn't hate Jews, who hated Hitler, who wanted nothing to do with the cause. Yet many could not speak up. If they did, not only could they die, their families could be killed, their friends could be murdered, they could serve life imprisonment, any horrible thing imaginable could happen. So in living with that fear, they had to go by the script marching against their own will. When Germany was defeated, if someone discovered you were a Nazi, then you were a dead man. It didn't matter if you were sickened by what you had to do; it was fear that kept you alive. That fear is what encourages prejudice to stay alive today, making the lessons we learned from WWII forever relevant.
As a kid, your mind is a sponge — the information you receive from childhood sticks with you through adulthood. If you're raised to believe that blacks are crooks and Mexicans are lazy up until you reach your twenties or thirties, then those very values that have been adamantly planted in your mind will remain intact. With Jojo being just a boy, it's not hard to imagine him having Hitler as an imaginary friend. With Nazis being held up as idols in the minds of their youths, there may have been plenty of children who would have had imaginary conversations with The Führer, just like a kid would have an imaginary interview with their favorite actor or athlete. It's not until one has a first-hand account of something outside of their comfort zone that their minds can be changed. To be in someone else's shoes or in this case, sharing an attic with a girl can reverse one's entire world view.
What's more interesting than Jojo is Sam Rockwell's character Captain Klenzendorf. At first, we're sickened by him. He drinks heavily in front of the children he's supposed to be watching after who are carrying weaponry. He's such a mess we don't know if he's going to have the Gestapo whack your family or not. He seems like a parody of Amon Goeth. As we get to learn more about Klenzendorf, we learn that he has closeted feelings for another man; he drinks because he may be struggling with his beliefs, much like Jojo is. He has the most touching moment toward the end of the picture that was a beautifully written piece of cinema that put a tear to my eye.
There were humans underneath those uniforms. "Jojo Rabbit" takes the divisive task of examining the contents of some of these men's hearts underneath those outfits. A tonal shift is incorporated into the film, where it goes from childlike fantasy to harsh reality then back again. Many may find it obtusely tackled. I found it seamlessly integrated. The performances are some of the best I have seen from child actors ever, particularly from Thomasin McKenzie, who is just mesmerizing in the picture. Whenever she's on-screen, she lets you hang on her every word. Her confidence and intellect will make any adult man feel like a fool as she effortlessly tears down Jojo's prejudice beliefs. The American actors playing Germans work with Waititi's particular style of filmmaking, where he is unapologetically letting the audience know that after all, you're just watching a movie. The parallels to the Nazis can be tied to today's politics, as this is the reason why "Jojo Rabbit" is so hot right now. Yet I feel like this will be a film that can be seen for a long time to come down the road far past the divisive times we live in. Taika Waititi has a unique style, energy, sense of risk, use of humor, and place of heart in each of the pictures that are distinctly his, which no one else can mimic. From "What We Do In The Shadows" to "Hunt for The Wilderpeople" to this film, it will be a joy to see what comes next from Mr. Waititi aside from his Marvel movies.
**** out of ****
