Film Fantastic, But A Little Too Much Mood Whiplash
There's an ongoing debate about whether or not it's appropriate to make comedies about Nazis. It could be argued that removing what makes them scary also removes their power, reducing them to nothing more than the punchlines to children's jokes. It could also be argued that it somewhat downplays the severity of the atrocities they committed if you take a truly evil ideology and simplify it down to a level similar to that of a Saturday-morning cartoon villain who ends up getting defeated by a talking dog. Lindsay Ellis has a great video named 'Mel Brooks, The Producers and the Ethics of Satire about Nazis' that explores this, and if Jojo Rabbit was out at the time it was made, I'm sure it would have been referred to.
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Anyway, that stuff's all really serious, and I don't feel at all qualified to comment on it, so let's get back into familiar ground. Jojo Rabbit is really funny.
Jojo Rabbit is definitely the hardest I've heard a cinema audience laugh in a very long time, and it manages to cover an impressively large variety of comedy. Slapstick, wordplay, pitch-black humour and an abundance of lines and visual gags so absurd that it's almost surreal. I appreciate it when creators include outlandishly ridiculous jokes that most would omit for fear of breaking immersion. And Taika Waititi as Adolf Hitler, the imaginary friend of 10 year old Jojo, is utilised a perfect amount.
The story itself is predictable, but enjoyable. Jojo's childish enthusiasm to do whatever it takes to dress up in a funny uniform and be part of a club is challenged when he discovers that his mother is secretly harbouring a Jewish girl in the house, and blind fanaticism crashes headlong into natural innocence.
That said, if you're wondering about the title, I did have one problem with this film. It's a comedy/drama, not just a comedy. And when you have a cast of live-action cartoon characters, and then you try be serious, it doesn't always work. There's a scene near the end that switches tone so rapidly that it left me feeling more confused than anything else. It really hammers home the tragedy of this boy, brainwashed into believing something terrible that his heart isn't really in, and now he's in the midst of a war and people are actually dying and - hey, it's those funny guys from the Brick Joke earlier in the film! Ha ha ha! Anyway, uh, it's really sad how - oh, wait, we just had a characters death Played for Laughs! But this next one is Played for Drama. Now back to the laughs! Drama. Laughs!
But I don't think this is bad; in fact, I appreciate that Taika Waititi found a weird spot between serious and silly, and even if it didn't always work for me, it was a new experience. Honestly, Jojo Rabbit's biggest flaw is that I saw it directly after I saw Knives Out, which immediately became one of my new favourite films.
So anyway, go see Jojo Rabbit. Unless it's this or Knives Out, in which case, see that first, and then Jojo Rabbit.
Film A biting satire that will punch you in the gut.
I'd heard of this film as a retort to the idea that Mel Brooks movies couldn't be made today...and in some ways, that's correct. I just wasn't expecting the deft use of such appropriate gravitas in with the masterful irreverence. The whole product doesn't remind me much of Brooks at all, but its serious side is warranted and done well.
Ten-year-old Johannes Betzler is a cute kid who has a strong nationalistic side, including seeing a version of Hitler as his imaginary friend and conscience. However, Jojo gets scarred by a Hitler Youth grenade drill gone awry and learns his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa, in an attic cubbyhole, causing him to reevaluate what he has been taught.
The film establishes its dark comedy chops right away as it opens with a montage of Hitler-saluting Germans paired with a German-language rendition of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". The comedy continues to be sharp and hilarious. Director Waititi makes imaginary Hitler a spectacle to watch as we're both charmed and uncomfortable watching that face act as a sassy friend, and the egregious bigotry and lack of safety Nazi-brainwashed children were under is framed as ludicrous.
Still, the film has quite a bit more heart and gravitas than I expected, and it works out. It's a story with strong motifs and themes that recur and then shock and sadden you when beats meet a climax you never realized was coming. The emotional depth of an innocent junior nationalist dealing with a bitter, mischievous refugee is solid. He's wrong but not evil; she's sad but not weak. He wants to learn about Jews but she knows it's for the wrong reasons and doesn't appoint herself cultural ambassador, instead letting him learn she's a person organically. His mother also gives the film a lot of depth as she has an affectionate and cheeky relationship with her son, who she also feels to be trapped in hateful ways of thinking she is risking her life to subvert. The acting in the film is fantastic and when it gets real, it makes a point of it, and makes points that need to be made. It's got good jokes and reflects the absurdity of the truth, but it doesn't let the audience forget the real tragedies of the time. I think it's a delicate balancing act but a successful one, and a nice approach to the question of "drama vs. irreverence" in the handling of Nazis. Jojo Rabbit ridicules the Nazis when appropriate, but depicts the horror honestly when appropriate. It works.
This film is a really solid package that understands itself perfectly while providing a story that's in turns hilariously wicked and satirical and also heavy and humanly affecting.