Jojo Rabbit (2019) - Movie Review

In June of 2017, in-between being named New Zealander Of The Year and making Thor: Ragnarok, filmmaker Taika Waititi made this video in collaboration with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Waititi making something like this. A video so bursting with ironic social cringe, made by a creative who has built an entire career out of weaponising it, that its discomfort can make it difficult to watch. Being able to sell the message that even the smallest act of racism adds to the larger picture (basically the concept of micro-aggressions in a nutshell) is what immediately won me over that this is the guy who should make a fascist satire in a “you couldn’t make a Mel Brooks movie today” cultural climate. And thankfully, the man does not disappoint.

Told through the eyes of Hitler Youth Jojo, an indoctrinated ten-year-old who discovers that his mother has been harbouring a Jew in their house, the film uses exaggeration and misinformation to build up its key points. Throughout the film, whether Jojo is conversing with his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself) or his real friend Yorki, numerous and increasingly bizarre observations are made about both the Führer and the Jews.

It’s a bunch of conspiracy theorist mish-mash, echoing a lot of the plain-faced absurdity of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, and even for those who see the statements as nonsense, they still have a quiet giggle amongst themselves because at least the people who are parroting them seemingly think the same way they do. It defines both groups through such self-servingly mythologised terms that, as the horror of the Nazi regime keeps unfolding, it’s revealed to be entirely devoid of humanity in multiple regards. It’s so detached from anything physically or emotionally tangible that these people might as well be taking advice from literal imaginary friends.

The performances behind that dialogue is amazingly crucial, as it ends up being in most of Waititi’s films, and the cast are certainly on their A-game all round. Roman Griffith Davis as Jojo, while giving the film a cheeky chance to infantilise the fascist mindset at large, keeps the film grounded as the world through the misunderstandings of a child, making his character arc hit that much harder. ScarJo as his mother is all things warm and delightful, one of her most fun big-screen turns in quite a while, and Thomasin McKenzie as the Jewish girl Elsa gives a lot of power behind the film’s more pointed observations about re-establishing the human connection between people, especially when put next to Davis.

While its sense of comedic timing is very strong, and its statements about the profound ridiculousness of the Nazi regime certainly hold water (especially with Waititi serving as the main visual shorthand for just how ridiculous it is), what truly makes this film work is how it treats that same conspiracy-laden mindset amongst the Nazi sympathisers. It takes pleasure out of pointing and laughing at what they’re saying, but it also keeps in mind the true cult mentality behind why they’re saying such things.

 

One of the most common mistakes when it comes to tackling unhealthy groupthink is laying the blame on everyone who echoes said groupthink, not taking into account the factors that contribute to that indoctrination. It’s basically the difference between laughing at Scientologists for being so stupid as to adhere to that doctrine, and getting angry at the higher-ups for strong-arming those same people in that situation.

Satire that only reiterates without commentary isn’t satire; it’s just more of the same shit. This is something that far too many people tend to forget when it comes to attempting satire, an attitude that ends up bleeding into the ‘Mel Brooks’ conversation and making people think ‘irony’ excuses anything and everything.

With this film, Taika Waititi and company essentially drop-kick that notion right out the window, enforcing that being able to take the piss out of racist dummkopfs while still delivering on the emotional drama isn’t something anyone can do successfully. And between its loud and farcical depictions of the Nazis, and its quiet and sobering depictions of the atrocities they committed (while still highlighting that sending the brainwashed to die for the cause is fucking horrific), this makes for one of the strongest works of cinematic satire in recent years. Waititi’s utilisation of comedic social cringe reaches new heights here, and he well and truly earns his place as a filmmaker worth checking out.