BEST OF 2019: Taika Waititi’s Fight Against Hatred in JOJO RABBIT
I get that there are some people out there uncomfortable with the very idea of this movie. It is after all a satirical concoction of modernity’s darkest hour: the rise of fascism in Germany. The film does not focus on the Holocaust per se, as Life is Beautiful did (another film I admittedly. admire) and — accordingly— was even more controversial. But the through line is obvious and any attempt to mock the Third Reich is always going to rub a portion of the public the wrong way because of the very real atrocities Hitler committed.
For better or worse, I’m not one of those people. I don’t think it’s right to make light of the Holocaust. But I also don’t believe that is the intention or the point of this film (or Life is Beautiful, for that matter). As I see it, the purpose of Jojo Rabbit is, in part, to mock hatred itself. It is deserving of our mockery. It typically results in horrid consequences, which is a frustrating power for something so base, so primitive. Writer-director Taika Waititi mocks the institutions that allow hatred to flourish in numbing, casual ways. And he does this while refusing to shy away from fascism’s harmful effects. Some may argue he does not show enough, but I think it’s important to remember this is a very specific story told from a child’s point-of-view while living in Germany.
Mockery is a powerful weapon because it has the power to disarm the conviction of those who either follow or enforce something dangerous. Yes, it can be a double-edged sword. If everything is a joke, and you don’t take anything seriously, you risk underestimating very real dangers. The trick is to treat the dangers as legitimate threats, while mocking the systems or logic that put them into existence.
Racial hatred is very real. We can acknowledge the danger it presents, while also mocking its inherent stupidity. And once we’ve disarmed it in such a way, we can then investigate that stupidity, ask ourselves why it exists. This person is racist. Why are they racist? Because they feel threatened. Why do they feel threatened? Because they stupidly think the other race is taking their jobs or is responsible for their problems. Why do they believe that? Because this idiot told them so. Why do they believe that idiot? Because he’s tells lies and passes them off as facts. Why do they believe his lies? Because they are angry and want someone to blame. Why are they angry? Because they are economically disenfranchised. Why are they economically disenfranchised? Because the town in which they live had an economy either built on outdated industries or those industries have moved overseas. And so on and so on.
JoJo Rabbit exposes the absurdity of antisemitism. It focuses on Jojo, a kindhearted young boy growing up in Nazi Germany. He doesn’t really understand the world around him, but he understands what is expected of him. He’s expected to be a good Nazi, whatever that means. The best he can make out, he needs to nail his Nazi salute and he needs to hate Jews. And if he fails at either, he — and possibly even his mother — may be seen as an outcast and he definitely doesn’t want that. He wants to belong.
With his father off in the war, Jojo doesn’t have many male role models. To help him along, he has an imaginary friend — his version of Hitler. Because really, to this child’s mind… who doesn’t love Hitler?
Hitler is played by Taika Waititi in a carefully calibrated comedic performance. Everything in this film is from Jojo’s point of view. If Hitler seems fun or buffoonish in one isolated scene, it is only because that is the version a child has created of a person he doesn’t really know to help get him through a tough moment or a bad day. It is disingenuous to argue that the movie is making the case that Hitler was a fun dude!
His relationship with this imaginary “friend” is actually ancillary to the film’s primary thread: One day Jojo discovers that his mother, Rosie, (an exuberant, winning Scarlett Johannson) has been hiding a young Jewish girl in their home. Having learned from his Nazi youth camp that Jewish people are monsters with horns and tails, not to mention possessing supernatural powers, the young boy is as hostile towards the girl as he is afraid of her. He resents his mother for keeping this secret, for going against Hitler, for — he believes — going against what his father is fighting for in the war.
Rosie is in a terrible spot for a mother who despises everything the Third Reich stands for. She can’t outright teach Jojo everything that is wrong about Hitler’s Germany, because he is too young. She fears he will not be able to hide those lessons from the public and therefore put his life in danger. The film never spells this out, but it’s there in Johannson’s performance; in Rosie’s patience and playfulness with her son, even in the face of the anger and resentment he displays towards her.
Thomasin McKenzie — really good in Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace — continues to impress as Elsa, the girl in hiding. She quickly realizes she has both a physical and mental advantage over the younger Jojo and she exploits those advantages. She uses his silly concepts of Jewish people against him, threatening him with psychic powers and a demon’s appetite. She is in a completely different film than Jojo. She is more mature, has experienced more horrors. But this is not her film.
The bulk of the film focuses on their growing tolerance of one another. Through his experiences with Elsa, Jojo begins questioning everything he’s been taught. He begins to realize that just because adults are in positions of authority, they are still either capable of lies or hiding the truth. He begins examining what he’s been told versus what his personal experiences tell him. He learns how foolish many of his beliefs were. His hatred melts into love and it’s here that Roman Griffin Davis’s performance as Jojo really takes flight. It’s really touching work.
Jojo Rabbit will likely make you laugh and it will make you cry. Its lessons are simple, but its subject matter is not. I understand the concerns of those who believe humor is no way to deal with what happened last century. But this is not a callous film, not in context (I’ve seen some people on social media try to use scenes out of context as commentary against the film). It has no allusions that love defeated hate in Nazi Germany. This is not a film about Happy Endings. But it is a film about love defeating hatred for at least one boy, one child out of a million, and it will make you feel better about being a human being; it inspires you to want to be a better human being. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
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