Jojo Rabbit: A No-Chill Satire
As the titular character, Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), gives his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), multiple “Sieg, Heils”, and then leaves his home to “Heil Hitler” every bystander he sees, as his “blind fanaticism” to the Nazi regime corrupts his 10-year old mind as he wants to serve in the war as a soldier in the SS, with The Beatles’ “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” playing, two people walked out. Then, when Fräulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) speads some evil propaganda about jews and encourages the young Nazis to “burn some books, ja?”, two more people walked out. And then another person walked out during a scene in which Jojo talks to imaginary Hitler as to what to do with the jew that’s hidden in his house (Thomasin McKenzie).
Taika Waititi doesn’t hold anything and fully satarizes the SS and their perception of Jews in Jojo Rabbit, without having any spine whatsoever as to “whether or not the jokes may offend jews and/or other people who might’ve had family members that survived World War II or, worse, the holocaust”. Taika Waititi just doesn’t care and gives, in the film’s first hour, a full-fledged satire. I wasn’t particularly enjoying the first 10 minutes, in which the “Sieg, Heil” is satired and presented as a joke, especially when children were laughing and then, when the movie was over, imitated Jojo saying “Heil, Hitler!” to everyone. The film, distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is, obviously NOT for young children, as it contains jokes that shouldn’t be taken lightly when you understand the full context of what happened during World War II, especially when I’ve been spending the last two weeks plowing through Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah for a class. There are jokes that are absolutely offensive, which prompted walkouts (the two old ladies behind me just said “Oh, God, this is terrible!” and left).
But, on the other hand, there are jokes that are absolutely brilliant. The sequence in which Deertz (Stephen Merchant) and his merry men of Gestapo agents raid Jojo’s home for a routine inspection. The scene is fantastic and Merchant gives a great extended cameo, as everyone needs to “Heil, Hitler” one another. As it is known with his previous films, Waititi loves extended humor and jokes that keep going, no matter how embarassingly cringe it is to make you laugh even more, and the scene excels at that. Taika Waititi is also fantastic, directing himself as imaginary Adolf Hitler, who has some great one-liners like “You will burn down the house and blame Winston Churchill”, or when Jojo realizes how truly evil Hitler really is, his personality changes from joyful “imaginary best friend” to dictator, Waititi nails the accent and mannerisms of Hitler, which makes it even more scary. Like I said, the first hour or so is pure comedy, and will leave you, sometimes, laugh out loud if you have a spine and can take the no-chill satire on World War II and Nazism. Yes, Waititi makes nazis look like complete buffoons, but what they say about Jews and their depiction is made only for laughs, but some people may find it offensive. If you’re easily offended and will bitch & moan about the fact that Disney will distribute a film like this (but not release Song of the South on Disney+), don’t go see this. The performances are great all-around, from a great Roman Griffin Davis playing a gullible Nazi fanatic, to Scarlett Johansson with limited screentime playing Jojo’s mother and a fantastic Sam Rockwell as a wannabe-SS officer who wants to go down in style. All of the performances are great, and the firs hour of the film is too.
However, the film dramatically shifts in tone during the film’s second hour (or last 48 minutes to be more precise) as Jojo Rabbit now becomes a drama on World War II, when he learns that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is anti-nazi and was hanged as being part of a resitance movement. The shift in tone, truly, comes out of nowhere, and took me off-guard, as Waititi reminds us, after an hour of pure satire, that World War II is no laughing matter. The relationship between Jojo and Elsa (McKenzie) is more compassionnate and fantastically touching. Yes, the shift in tone is jarring, and a little unexpected, but the way the film ends slowly progresses into a touching, heartfelt, story on love and anti-hate, exactly what Waititi’s film promised us “A anti-hate satire”. Yes, some of the jokes are incredibly offensive and there’s a lot of them that could be a bad influence for the young children that were in my screening, but the performances are fantastic, the soundtrack and score by Michael Giacchino is great, the cinematography is stunning, and star-studded performances are great. It’s a film to see, if you have a spine.
✯✯✯½
