Jojo Rabbit Has An Oscar-Winning Script And A Great Big Heart
Oscar Winner Taika Waititi. Get used to hearing that sentence all over the place whenever he does anything ever again. He might as well change his name to ‘Oscar Winner Taika Waititi’ and we can call him Oscar for short. Sorta like how everyone calls that dude Virat Kohli when it’s a little known fact that his full name is actually Virat Kohli b. Southee. Not sure what the b stands for. Anyway, the same familiar media outlets that tack that permanent Oscar Winner tag onto his name will be the same ones that always (and I mean ALWAYS) use lines like ‘Kiwi Golfing Sensation Lydia Ko’ and ‘Aussie Tennis Brat Nick Kyrgios’. Imagination is a valuable tool, children. Never lose it.
You don’t need me to get into detail about how cool it is that Taika Waititi won an Oscar. That’s all kinda obvious. Even if you’re like me and the Oscars are more just a triviality because they’re never ever going to reward all your faves considering that the majority of the Academy voters are still crusty old bastards... it’s still a buzz to see a fella out of Aotearoa standing up there accepting an award in the big spotlight as Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Quentin Tarantino, Laura Dern, and Leonardo DiCaprio all watched on. And to speak to them all in Te Reo no less. What a champion. Hey and let’s not ignore a couple other kiwis who were also nominated that day: Chelsea Winstanley was a producer on Jojo Rabbit, while Anthony McCarten wrote that movie about the Two Popes and was up for a gong in the same category that Waititi won. Aotearoa. Kg for Kg. Right on.
But yeah, that’s all been done. That conversation was had at water coolers across the nation on Tuesday. Let’s instead talk about what he won for because Jojo Rabbit is a delight of a film. Not necessarily what I expected to feel before I watched it, having heard/read/seen a few stink reviews of the film... but it’s also a movie that has some very passionate supporters and it a lot seems to depend on whether or not you can catch its vibe.
After all, this is a movie about a ten year old kid who has Adolf Hitler for an imaginary friend, right? It’s a bit of a risk. Jojo Rabbit takes place in a small German town towards the end of World War II (spoiler alert: Germany loses) and concerns the trials and tribulations of the young Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) as he discovers that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is perhaps not the picture perfect example of Nazism that he himself tries to be when he discovers that she’s sheltering a Jewish teenager, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie – another of Aotearoa’s brilliant young creatives, who was fantastic in a film called Leave No Trace in 2018 and is equally wonderful here), in the walls of his recently deceased sister’s room. Jojo’s father is off at war somewhere on the Italian front, possibly dead, possibly a deserter. So Jojo therefore turns to state doctrine for the stability he lacks... only to find he’s a little too innocent, a little too squeamish for those dreams as well. Then he discovers Elsa and slowly but surely the lies he’s been fed begin to unravel.
It’s a balancing act for sure. Depicting a bunch of sympathetic Nazis including a comedically-inclined Adolf Hitler... you’ve gotta be careful not to be too silly and frivolous with what’s clearly a very serious subject matter but you also can’t lose sight of the satirical and humane themes involved here. It has to be funny but it can’t be too light. It has to take itself seriously but not too seriously. That’s not easy to do and it’s worth mentioning that the book this film is based on apparently conveys a very very different tone.
Which is why I think a lot depends on whether or not you appreciate the humour. The dark aspects of the drama are gonna get you one way or another - there’s one scene in particular which if you’ve seen it then you’ll know what I’m on about. So the humour really needs to strike in order for those two things to offer leverage for each other and Taika being Taika it can all be a little too deadpan for the tastes of some. I doubt many kiwis are gonna have trouble with it but our American brethren and sistren, for example, might not stay on the beats quite so easily. And some people just pure and simply were never going to give it a chance because of the subject matter, which is what it is. I dunno. Humour is such a subjective thing. All I can say is that I found it pretty hilarious and also that a lot of the more negative reviews I’ve stumbled upon have tended to come from the more, shall we say... stuffy and established corner of the critics’ fraternity.
A part of me wondered if it might be a dark horse for the best picture award at the Ossies. 1917 was the blatant favourite being a male dominated war film with technical superiority and all... but Jojo Rabbit hits a few of those familiar notes that academy folk tend to appreciate. An anti-prejudice theme. A colourful and (eventually) uplifting cinematic experience. Pretty clear moral boundaries. All it was missing was Tom Hanks in a major role. But if it had been elevated to that level then we’d be reading all the negative backlash stories by now (of which Parasite, another brilliant and daring film, has avoided thanks to the barrier of being both a foreign film and also a film that doesn’t have any Nazis in it).
Despite surface impressions though, Jojo Rabbit really isn’t that kind of film... which is why it’s so poetic that it’s been recognised for script-writing instead. Specifically celebrating it for its depth, ambition, and invention. Sam Rockwell’s character is the best example of this. To start with he’s an embittered alcoholic, furious at the cards that life has dealt him (teaching a Hitler youth camp rather than fighting on the frontlines) and over the course of the film he undergoes an entire narrative arc of his own which is only ever implied in the background. Rockwell is superb in this. Scarlett Johansson’s without doubt the heart of the film but Rockwell in many ways is the soul... and one getting nominated at the Oskos and one not is more a reflection of the rank average depth of roles for supporting women in Hollywood (and also how supporting actress roles are perceived – I know you hear me, fellow Booksmart fans).
As for Taika Waititi as Hitler... it’s a weird one. He’s not really in the same film as any of the others as he only ever interacts with one kid and even then his prominence slides as the film progresses and Jojo begins to deconstruct the hatred around him. But it’s important to remember that he’s not playing Adolf Hitler, he’s playing a ten year old boy’s idealised interpretation of Adolf Hitler. Two very different things.
Waititi has called this an anti-hate satire and hate comes in many different shapes and forms. There’s no simple happily ever after as the war encroaches upon the town at the end. Horrible things have happened which cannot be undone and for a film as fantastical as this one... reality really hits hard on more than a couple occasions. Some jokers have criticised the film for depicting ‘Good Nazis’ but really what it’s depicting is the (bureaucratically reinforced) banality of hatred.
This isn’t a film that deals with the higher-ups in the chain of command. It’s about victims of circumstance, such as a child born into a regime that preys upon his vulnerabilities. As Elsa tells him in one scene: “you’re not a Nazi, Jojo. You’re a ten year old kid who likes dressing up in a funny uniform and wants to be part of a club”. The Nazism of Jojo Rabbit is not that of real life. It’s a mask for hatred of all forms. Institutional hatred. Subconscious hatred. You know, all the insidious forms.
And despite what you may read the ending does not come with some tidy Hollywood solution, a neat little bundle of lessons learned and crises averted. This film is a tragedy. It’s funny and it’s a bit silly and then the rug gets pulled out from under you and the illusions/delusions that Jojo has been day-dreaming through are shattered and you’re left with the capitulation of war. War: another expression of hatred, always and without exception. The unexpected (but extraordinary) poignancy of the film then comes in how Jojo and Elsa choose, literally, to dance amongst the rubble of what was left behind... as David Bowie’s Heroes plays over the soundtrack and then Rainer Maria Rilke gets the last word.
In the same way that compassion and tenderness overcome the spell of hatred that Jojo had been entranced by, the ultimate compassion and tenderness of the film does the same with the inevitable critiques that a story like this was always gonna face. And, look, if you don’t wanna take my word for it then how about taking Mel Brooks’ word instead? He called Jojo Rabbit “a terrific and eloquent and beautiful picture” and considering how 90% of the iffy reviews all bring up Brooks’ The Producers in comparison, I’d say ol’ Mel is in a pretty strong place to judge.
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