A Movie You May Have Missed: Jojo Rabbit
by Chris Churilla
*** SPOILERS WITHIN ***
Overview
Jojo Rabbit (2019) is one of the most daring comedies I have seen in a while; I knew it from the moment I watched the trailer. A coming-of-age story set in World War II Germany, telling the tale of Johannes “Jojo” Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year-old boy whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi).
Yes, you read that right.
Waititi, best known for directing Thor: Ragnarok (2017), clearly rode his influence gained from the success of Thor to get Jojo made—though I imagine it was a tough sell to studio executives.
But the gamble paid off; Jojo Rabbit received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and Waititi won for Best Adapted Screenplay; he based it off the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens.
Controversy Right Out of the Gate
The opening scene wasted no time in challenging viewers.
Jojo is a member of the Hitler Youth and recites some sort of creed. Adolf appears and questions him on the animal-like traits possessed by Germans.
Then Jojo expresses some doubts, but Adolf bolsters his confidence and encourages the boy to “Heil” him.
Jojo’s first attempts come out as weak, but Adolf keeps pushing him to do better. Jojo does until he is shouting it at the top of his lungs, then races out of his house, yelling at passerby.
On the surface, this scene is horrifying: Jojo yelling, “Heil Hitler!” at the top of his lungs with all of the enthusiasm of a screaming girl at a Beatles concert.
But I found myself laughing despite the horror. I was laughing at the absurdity of the scene, and I believe that was what Waititi was trying to accomplish; by going so over the top as to make it laughable, much in the same vein of Mel Brooks’ attack on racism with his film Blazing Saddles (1974).
Chink In The Armor
At a weekend camp for the Hitler Youth—of which Jojo is a member—he talks about capturing a Jew and turning them in to become a member of Hitler’s personal guard as well as best friends.
But then a chink in the armor of his fanaticism appears: he lacks the will to put his beliefs in action. In a mock battle, he fights no one and attempts to run away; then, when later ordered to kill a rabbit, he instead releases it.The other kids make fun of him, and he runs away, but fortunately, Adolf is there to cheer him up.
Screenwriter Blake Snyder called such a moment a “Save the Cat” moment: when the protagonist does something that reveals his true character and gets the audience rooting for him.
“Rat” In The Wall
Jojo’s beliefs are put to the test when he discovers Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish girl hiding in his house with the help of his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson, in an Academy Award-nominated performance).His first reaction is naturally one of terror; his mind has been filled with all sorts of lies about Jews. His efforts to remove her fail and so he is stuck with her.
As expected, the more time he spends with her, the more he sees her as a person rather than the monster he is brainwashed into thinking she is.
Love Your Enemies
One of the most relevant Scripture passages that can apply to such a situation is from Matthew 5:43– 48, in which Jesus urges people to love those who hate them.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It is easy to love those who love us; there is little risk in that. But we all know where an easy path can lead us.
It’s not an easy thing to do, but as the saying goes, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
When someone hurts us, it is hard not to wish harm back on them. We have been hurt, and as long as the injuring party is out there, they can hurt us again, so what better way to protect ourselves than by hurting—or even eliminating—them?
But are we perfect?
We most assuredly are not, no matter how hard we try to be or think we are.
Yet God sent us Jesus anyway as a means to forgive our sins, and that is the example we should follow when we are wronged.
To seek revenge is to play to our base natures, but to forgive is the closest we can come to being God in this life.
Critical Response
With such controversial subject matter, the range of critical response ran the gamut, with opinions ranging from “brilliant” and “touching” to reducing the atrocities of the Holocaust to a background prop and portraying some Nazis as “nice.”
I am not a Holocaust denier; I absolutely believe Hitler and his fanatical followers were trying to wipe Jews off the face of the planet, but I think Waititi pushed it to the background because even if Jojo witnessed such things, they would not have been enough to knock some sense into him.
I believe children, in general, are very self-centered; they think about something in how it affects them directly. For Jojo to see National Socialism as evil, it had to take away something important to him—and it most certainly did.
At that moment, I did not see a young Nazi—I saw a boy whose whole world had fallen apart, and my heart ached for him—and I challenge anyone to think otherwise.
“Nice” Nazis?
I was particularly troubled by the critique against the portrayal of sympathetic German characters in the film.
It has been well-documented that his people did not universally love Hitler; German army officers tried several times to assassinate him, the most famous being Operation Valkyrie (2008), later adapted into a film starring Tom Cruise.
But the civilian populace also resisted as well due to Germany’s weak economy throughout the Nazi rule. Low wages and shortages, in contrast to the high style of living by Nazis such as Hermann Göring, contributed to deep dissatisfaction among the populace.
Therefore, I think painting all Germans of the period with the same brush makes the writer just as guilty of the close-mindedness she attributed to the Nazis.
Where Are The Adults?
As I watched the film again, and not only did it hold up to a second viewing, but also I noticed there were few good adult characters.
There were six adult characters in total:
Rosie
Adolf
Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), a cynical German veteran with one eye and a secret of his own.
Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson), a blindly enthusiastic aide to Klenzendorf.
Finkel (Alfie Allen), a bumbling aide to Klenzendorf.
Deertz (Stephen Merchant), a petty Gestapo bureaucrat.
Only Rosie and Klenzendorf provided some sort of positive role model for Jojo, while the rest were depicted as buffoons.
Waititi said he wanted to capture war—and the adults who fight them—through the eyes of children, and I think this is something else he got right.
I expect many children find adults to be very confusing; while a child’s mind is simple and direct, an adult’s is difficult and roundabout. They do all sorts of “weird” things, and when children question them about it, they’ll say, “It’s complicated” or “You wouldn’t understand” or “You’ll understand when you’re an adult.”
I’m a few years away from fifty, and I still find people confusing.
Children can be amazing creatures; they can blindly accept what an adult tells them, both good and bad.
Is it any wonder Jesus tells us to accept the Kingdom of God as a child, as described in Luke 18:15–18?
I wish I could believe as simply as a child. But as an adult, I question almost everything.I would give almost anything to see the world through a child’s eyes and believe as they do.
Lead Actor
Believe it or not, this was the film debut of Griffin.
The burden of carrying a film is incredible, yet Griffin was absolutely phenomenal. In some films, I can see when an actor is “acting” their role and when they are “being” their role, and Griffin was definitely the latter.
Everything seemed effortless for him in portraying this boy’s psychological journey. I never doubted him for a second.
I believe a good performance is not an individual effort. Certainly, a lot of work is up to the actor, but I think there are two more crucial ingredients: a good script for him to base his performance on and a good director to bring that out.I hope both he and Waititi both have long and successful careers.
About Captain Klenzendorf
In the movie, it is strongly suggested Klenzendorf is a homosexual, and Finkel is his lover. In Nazi Germany, homosexuals were among the groups of “undesirables” along with others such as Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses as well as Jews.
If that is true, it makes me wonder why he stayed and fought for a leader who despised him. Did he do it to serve as some sort of fifth column, much like the German officers who tried to assassinate Hitler? Did he do it because he loved his country and his people more than his leader? Or was it something else entirely? The question is never directly dealt with, so we never find out why and therefore, must think for ourselves about it.
Final Thoughts
This is a very daring comedy with Waititi trying to show the absurdity of hate.
As with any comedy, some people are not going to get the humor, especially given the subject matter in this film.
Waititi said in an interview he was nervous on the set, but he looked at it as a good thing; he saw it as motivation to give his very best effort, and I, for one, liked it.
The highest duty of an artist is to challenge the public to make them think deeply about the message he is trying to get across, and Waititi did just that.
This is a movie that will be remembered for a long time, and I hope you see it the way I did: thought-provoking, with a new perspective on the perversion and horrors of Nazi Germany.
Resources
We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.
The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.
And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.
Read. Engage. Enjoy!
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