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Taika Waititi directs and is an imaginary Hitler in his coming-of-age/Nazi Germany satire Jojo Rabbit |
Director: Taika Waititi
Cast: Roman Griffin Davis (Johannes “Jojo Rabbit” Betzler),
Thomasin McKenzie (Elsa Korr), Scarlett Johansson (Rosie Betzler), Taika
Waititi (Adolf Hitler), Sam Rockwell (Captain Klenzendorf), Rebel Wilson (Fraulain
Rahm), Alfie Allen (Lt Finkel), Stephen Merchant (Deertz), Archie Yates (Yorki)
A comedy set in Nazi Germany? Well if there is one thing you
need to get right, it’s the tone. Taika Waititi’s comedy about a boy with an
imaginary friend who just happens to be a version of Adolf Hitler more or less
does so – although I’d argue it’s less a comedy and more of a terrifying condemnation
of the horrific powers of indoctrination. But that sells a lot less well in
trailers doesn’t it?
Set in late 1944, the boy in question is Johannes (Roman
Griffin Davis – a revelatory performance) a ten-year old who wants to be a
passionate Nazi but is undone by his own underlying sweetness. Not that it
stops him believing everything he’s told by the regime and its theories around
Jews, re-enforced by his imaginary best friend, a childishly stroppy version of
Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself). Nicknamed Jojo Rabbit after his
failure to kill a rabbit on a Hitler Youth indoctrination camp, then later
blowing himself with a grenade meaning he can no longer qualify for military
service, Jojo sees his dreams of becoming the ultimate Aryan fading away.
Things become even more conflicted when he discovers his secretly anti-Nazi
mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a teenage Jewish girl Elsa
(Thomasin McKenzie) in the walls of his late sister’s bedroom.
Waititi’s film returns to his affectionate roots of
coming-of-age stories but in an entirely different setting – here the child
must grow up by learning to reject the vile ideologies that have been hammered
into him by the system. Waititi shoots the entire film from the perspective of
the child’s view of the world, meaning the horrors of the war are kept largely
at a distance from us (until a sudden and terrible event brings them
overwhelmingly into frame). The Nazi world around Jojo looks like some glorious
Enid Blyton summer, the colour of which only gradually disappears from the film
as event proceed. It’s a neat visual way of capturing the child’s innocence.
This also means many of the characters are seen from Jojo’s
perspective. Most obviously Adolf Hitler (the imaginary one), played with
gleeful comic gusto by Waititi, is far from the actual dictator but is a sort
of ten-year-old’s idea of what he might be like, childish, oddly innocent in
places, prone to strops – but also has enough darkness in him (which emerges
more and more as the film goes on) to show that he is still part of the hateful
ideology the real Hitler promoted. Similarly, Jojo’s first impression of Elsa
is shot and framed like some sort of creepy horror film – matching the ideas
that have been indoctrinated into him by the regime that the Jews are a
near-Satanic threat.
That indoctrination is a big part of the film’s primary
themes. An early sequence at a Hitler Youth camp is less funny – even if it
does have moments of brash comedy and some good jokes – more horrifying for the
mantra of violence, race hate and slaughter that the regime is preaching almost
every second that its representatives appear on screen. It’s actually chilling
seeing this group of impressionable kids succumbing so completely to the
excitement of this relentless onslaught of propaganda. The passion that the
Nazis inspire is wonderfully caught by Waititi in the credits, with Leni
Reifenstahl footage beautifully recut to the Beatles singing in German – it’s
hard to miss the parallels. (The film makes some neat use of modern music, with
David Bowie also popping up).
Jojo however is still a sweet, kind, generous boy under the
surface – however much he has swallowed the constant message from his
government that he should aspire to being a cold eyed killer. Waititi’s message
is that there is still hope in the roots of next generation, however much the
current generation does it’s best to mess that up. It’s something that his
mother – exquisitely played by an Oscar-nominated Scarlett Johansson with a
wonderful sense of playfulness hiding an intense sadness – clings to
desperately, knowing the sweet boy she loves is still largely there, however
twisted he is by a cruel ideology.
It’s the relationship with Elsa that helps bring that out,
with Thomasin McKenzie wonderful as an initially hostile young girl, determined
to never be a victim, who softens and thaws as she senses the kindness in this
boy. Her hiding is all part of Rosie’s own defiance of the regime and its
oppression, the horrors of which – from random searches to executions – slowly
begin to creep into the film.
If there is a problem with the film, it is that the darker
elements of this film – and there are many – often play a little awkwardly
against the more comedic and even farcical elements. Waititi as an actor gets
the tone right – but others, particularly Rebel Wilson as an oppressive Nazi –
head too far into unfunny, tonally flat farce. Sam Rockwell does a decent job
as a German army officer, even if his obvious bitterness for the war effort and
contempt for Nazism makes him an unlikely candidate to be running an
indoctrination camp, but even he veers sometimes too far onto the side of flat
farce. Other than Waititi, only Stephen Merchant as an officious Nazi official
– including a running joke of continuous Heil Hitler greetings – gets the
balance right between comedy and darkness.
It’s a balance the film doesn’t always make very
successfully – but it’s balanced by the warmth that it feels for Jojo, the
excellence of Griffin Davis and McKenzie’s performances, and the moments of
genuine shock and trauma that surprise the viewers and head the film openly
into very darker territory. Less a comedy and more a plea to allow children to
be children, not victims of the views and desires of adults, it’s a thought
provoking film.
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