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Jojo Rabbit |OT| A film by Taika Waititi with himself as Adolf Hitler... really(Open Spoilers)
- Thread starter Naijaboy
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This is the first Taika Waititi film I actually didn't like and I'm a big fan of the guy. It felt like it was trying really hard to be La Vita è Bella for this generation, but it bungled the execution.
The performances by the kids were great and some of the jokes are funny, but the combination jokes + serious stuff in this film didn't work at all for me (while it did in previous Waititi films). One moment the movie is super serious, then it's incredibly silly again. I feel like the movie should either have been a little more serious with the comedy or a little less serious with the drama, now the two parts feel like a total whiplash.
I also have some major issues with
The performances by the kids were great and some of the jokes are funny, but the combination jokes + serious stuff in this film didn't work at all for me (while it did in previous Waititi films). One moment the movie is super serious, then it's incredibly silly again. I feel like the movie should either have been a little more serious with the comedy or a little less serious with the drama, now the two parts feel like a total whiplash.
I also have some major issues with
the main Nazi in this (Sam Rockwell) being secretly an okay dude. Can we please stop with that shit and just make Nazi's Nazi's?
It makes it feel like Waititi was pulling his punches by going "Yeah, the Nazi's were stupid and dumb, but maybe they weren't all that bad, eh? Maybe some officers were actually okay people?" I know this was not the intention, but for me it felt like it at least implied it. And that is a pretty weird message to even imply in a movie that's supposed to be a biting satire of Nazi's and Far Right assholes.
It makes it feel like Waititi was pulling his punches by going "Yeah, the Nazi's were stupid and dumb, but maybe they weren't all that bad, eh? Maybe some officers were actually okay people?" I know this was not the intention, but for me it felt like it at least implied it. And that is a pretty weird message to even imply in a movie that's supposed to be a biting satire of Nazi's and Far Right assholes.
Saw this over the weekend with some friends, all of whom seemed to really enjoy it. I found it to be a really interesting mix of comedy and tragedy, and a wonderful film all around.
I'm sure a lot will be said of JoJo's mum's death (which was really shocking and affecting, the moment you realize you recognise those shoes), but I found the death and sacrifice of Sam Rockwell's character pretty impactful too.
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I had the same thoughts during the early parts of the movie but
it seemed like he was always fucking up on purpose to undermine the nazis(thus getting demoted) and I think it made it at least partially clear he didn't share their ideology at all, I think he also knew what Jojo's mother was up to.. I think the film successfully conveyed that but it walked a thin line there so I can see people not thinking it to be successful at what it was trying to do with him
Also,
given his secret, hinted at relationship with Alfie Allen and his flamboyant uniform, he's probably gay. Which obviously wouldn't have been looked on kindly by the Nazis.
I don't know I felt that chaos fit the film. You are really experiencing it to a 10 year old eyes. With the highs and lows it felt fitting that the film shifted tonally so much.
On the spoiler:
In Sam Rockwell's character's case it's incredibly clear he's gay and in a relationship with Alfie Allen's character. You can see him being down on a lot of things the Nazi's were doing, the book burning for example as well. But he had something to live for in Alfie Allen's character, at his end it's clear that he didn't make it so Klenzendorf decides to save Jojo as this last deed, he was going to get executed regardless.
I didn't miss those things about Rockwell's character. Of course I didn't. They make it blatantly obvious what's going on. My problem with it however is why he would ever try to write the character like that in the film. This is supposed to be a biting criticism of Nazism, a satire about a Far Right movement that killed thousands of people, yet the person of that organisation that you highlight the most is 'actually a good guy' and all the others you show are hilariously incompetent to the point that it's totally unclear how they ever even got into that place.
When I think about great comedies/satires about the Nazi regime, I think about movies like The Great Dictator, La Vita è Bella, To Be or Not to Be or even The Producers and that one scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where they meet Hitler. All of those movies still show the Nazi's as being evil bastards. They don't go 'ah, we're making a comedy and Nazi's are dumb, so let's make them all idiots'. They show the Nazi's are awful people and then make fun of them.
La Vita è Bella has the most direct links to what Jojo Rabbit is trying in my opinion, as it's also a movie that shows the Nazi power from the perspective of a young boy, but that's again a movie that takes it's Nazi's very, very seriously. The nice man they meet early on in the film turns out to be a real bastard of a man when he's in uniform, exactly the opposite of Rockwell's character who turns out to have been a nice (gay) guy all along despite being a Nazi.
The weird thing to me is that Taika Waititi absolutely should be able to make this kind of movie, as he has already done so before with Boy, an amazing movie that features a kid who looks up to his ex-convict dad. When his dad finally comes home he's a lovable goofball to his son, yet at the same time you as viewer knows he actually doesn't give a shit about his son and is clearly a bad man, something the kid finally realizes at the end.
This film clearly tries to do the same thing with fictional Hitler and that definitely works, but at the same time he makes the real Nazi's into some sort of lovable goofballs which just confuses me. Even Stephen Merchant and Rebel Wilson are more like silly caricatures than actual criticism of Nazism, even though they're supposed to be the hardliners.
When I think about great comedies/satires about the Nazi regime, I think about movies like The Great Dictator, La Vita è Bella, To Be or Not to Be or even The Producers and that one scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where they meet Hitler. All of those movies still show the Nazi's as being evil bastards. They don't go 'ah, we're making a comedy and Nazi's are dumb, so let's make them all idiots'. They show the Nazi's are awful people and then make fun of them.
La Vita è Bella has the most direct links to what Jojo Rabbit is trying in my opinion, as it's also a movie that shows the Nazi power from the perspective of a young boy, but that's again a movie that takes it's Nazi's very, very seriously. The nice man they meet early on in the film turns out to be a real bastard of a man when he's in uniform, exactly the opposite of Rockwell's character who turns out to have been a nice (gay) guy all along despite being a Nazi.
The weird thing to me is that Taika Waititi absolutely should be able to make this kind of movie, as he has already done so before with Boy, an amazing movie that features a kid who looks up to his ex-convict dad. When his dad finally comes home he's a lovable goofball to his son, yet at the same time you as viewer knows he actually doesn't give a shit about his son and is clearly a bad man, something the kid finally realizes at the end.
This film clearly tries to do the same thing with fictional Hitler and that definitely works, but at the same time he makes the real Nazi's into some sort of lovable goofballs which just confuses me. Even Stephen Merchant and Rebel Wilson are more like silly caricatures than actual criticism of Nazism, even though they're supposed to be the hardliners.
I really enjoyed. Regarding the 'goofy portrayal' of the Germans/Nazis, that didnt strike me that odd. But maybe thats because I'm also familiar with stuff like Allo Allo which is a bit of the same schtick in that regards.
But that's also the only thing La Vita è Bella has in common with Jojo Rabbit. Giosué and Jojo are on complete different sides of the spectrum as characters though where they're coming from. Jojo thinks he wants to be a Nazi, to him they are these loveable goofballs and something he wants to be a part of in the beginning of the film. By the end all these character's get what they had coming though. In the case of Rockwell's character Waititi establishes him almost right from the start as someone who disagrees with the Nazi values, it's not a revelation for his character.
Couldn't even get 15 minutes into this on account of it making nazis and even hitler seem ok. And I get that the director is Jewish but that doesn't make the anti-Semitic "jokes" somehow fine. Sorry. And yeah I'm sure there is a revelation that the nazis are actually not ok, but do we really need a film that normalizes them from the jump and then tears them down?
imo it just really isn't comedic subject matter, or if it can be this is done in too poor of taste.
imo it just really isn't comedic subject matter, or if it can be this is done in too poor of taste.
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he was also disabled due to a war injury yet was still a competant marksmen, but of course the nazis had no care or place for those affected by the cruetly of war (or any disability of any kind)
this doesn't normalise them, it ridicules them.
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Here's a nice article from The New Yorker.
I loved it. It definitely didn't make Nazis/Hitler okay and there were only 2 or so adult Nazis I thought came off redeemable. It was a cable about friendship and ignorance in the light of terror. Hitler was also a figment of a boy's imagination awash in fanataism and lonliness. It wasn't Hitler.
Mel Brooks praised it so that holds more weigh than anything else.
Mel Brooks praised it so that holds more weigh than anything else.
I'm still struggling to understand what people saw in this movie. II feel like it's just so cobbled together. The time between
is what, like 10-20 minutes? I forgot. Unlike Parasite, which goes from hilarious to dead serious in an instant, it just doesn't feel earned here at all. It's jarring in a bad way. It's also not even particularly funny during the funny moments, and the "ok this is serious time" pieces of exposition seem so short.
The best thing about the movie is the poster and the trailer music.
a young boy seeing his executed mother hanging in the town square to doing a happy little jig
The best thing about the movie is the poster and the trailer music.
This normalization is kinda the whole point of the film, Jojo is a child brought up within the system and you see the world from his perspective.
We see the absurdity of the Nazi's, and the film pulls no punches in showing that absurdity or evil, but it has to start with Jojo earnestly being in love with the ideology and propaganda he's been bombarded with every day, even if he doesn't fully understand it.
I also think you misread those first 15 minutes, it's not saying Nazi's are OK, it's saying Jojo thinks they're OK, because he's a child who doesn't know any better.
Loved it. Everyone is great in it too. Probably the best ScarJo performance I've seen in as long as I can remember. Yorki was the highlight for me:
"The only friends we have left are the Japanese and, between you and me, they're not very Aryan looking."
I wouldnt say it normalizes them but it treats nazis with kid gloves...in 2019 lol. Waititi clearly stinks at satire here, but the stuff with the kids is where he excels
yeah overall that's my problem with it. I just don't think it's really a subject matter to be treated so lightheartedly and then the unnecessary Jew jokes just aren't funny.
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There is enough literature out there that proves this exact thing you describe. Many stories emerged in the decades after the war ended.
"Hahaha isn't it crazy how the Nazis thought that Jews had magical mystical powers and could sprout wings and stuff? They're so dumb. Hahaha!"
No, because they used that as an actual pretext to murder real, live people. The absurdity and stupidity of those in charge did not stop them from committing unthinkable atrocities. I suppose it's possible to thread that needle, but Waititi whiffs so hard. It's just not very funny (got one hearty laugh out of me at a sight gag, but that's it). The subject matter presents an almost impenetrable barrier to the idea of humor, especially in a time when similarly motivated violence is gaining prevalence once again. It does nothing to point and laugh, hoping that people will see the light on their own terms, but that is this film's entire thesis.
This movie felt like a studio committee checklist approved, sanitised Wes Anderson rip-off.
It's the kind of movie you think is daring if you liked The Book Thief.
It's the kind of movie you think is daring if you liked The Book Thief.
And yet here we are in a thread where at least a few people think this film is taking it easy on the Nazi's and is unwatchable.
Not so sure your take lines up with reality here.
What you wrote others thinking is what I'm saying I think as well. The film is fucking toothless.
Saw it yesterday and really enjoyed it. But I've been on the Waititi train since seeing Eagle vs. Shark. For me, the movie and tone worked. But really a YMMV kinda thing depending where you're coming from, what you feel is acceptable when it comes to the subject matter.
I took my 14 year old daughter to see it when it launched in the UK and we both loved it. Hits all the right notes for me - it's funny early on and has a really sobering change in tone (without losing the humour entirely) later. I was close to tears at a few points and my daughter was crying quite a bit towards the end.
We've talked a lot about the film since then.
When Rebel Wilson's character gives Yorki a gun and pushes him into the fray I laughed and then was immediately horrified (both by the action and my reaction), my daughter was instantly horrified.
We've talked a lot about the film since then.
Isn't the movie being toothless kinda the whole fucking point of the story? This is a 10 year old boy having an almost beetlemania style worship of the Nazis, and sees them as this super cool awesome men's club with awesome costumes fighting the supposed bad guys of the world. He hasn't been exposed to the atrocities of war, hasn't seen what they actually do to jews, just a few hanging in the town square and the incompetent asshatd that were the camp leaders in the Nazi Youth Camp. His only exposure and nazi mentorship was with a flamboyant closet gay captain who was killing himself with drink and his incompetent entourage, the only time they truly experience the war and its atrocities is when the Allies finally bomb the shit out of the town. I loved the movie and I definitely disagree that being "toothless" is a detraction, if it was anything but toothless up until a certain than there would have been an issue.
Really liked it. Trying to decide which I liked more: this or Knives Out.
I thought Theon Greyjoy was a bit underused.
I thought Theon Greyjoy was a bit underused.
I wouldn't say that the problem of the movie is that it "normalizes" Nazis, it's that it treats them way too silly which trivializes them. Even the Gestapo in this movie is silly and I love Stephen Merchant to death, but I'm not quite sure if it's a good idea to tell people 'Oh, those silly Gestapo officers, look at them and their silly Heil Hitlering ways', while in real life the Gestapo signed death warrants for thousands of innocent people for having the wrong religion, cultural group or sexual preference.
The Nazi's are absolutely horrible people in this film. They degrade Jojo because of his face every time they get a chance, and literally everyone of them does this. They are vile idiots following a vile idiot. And I thought the film was quite good in the way it portrait the complete idiocy of Nazism.
Yeah, calling the film toothless (or claiming that Sam Rockwell's character is supposed to be sympatheti) requires a massive level of misunderstanding the film that you'd have to actively be trying to do so.
Every adult in the Nazi is shown to be a genuine fanatic (Rebel Wilson), a mundane but complacent follower (Stephen Merchant), or a willing participant even if they are at odds with the ideology (Sam Rockwell). All of these people are shown to be monsterous figures at worst (Wilson and Merchant may be funny, but they are both shown participating in heinous acts) and unsympathetic (Rockwell and Allen are both queer men who willingly participate in a heinous system for their own glory and only become disillusioned when their station gets reduced) at best. All of these figures meet violent ends, with Rockwell still getting punished even though he does make two acts of kindness towards the end (it's hard to even say he's redeemed, when those actions likely wouldn't have happened if the Nazi leadership hadn't slighted him). The film also makes it clear that the campy imaginary Hitler isn't necessarily a good influence on Jojo really early on and he's downright and openly malicious by the end.
The only two "nazis" who manage to escape any sort of violent retribution are Jojo, who the whole film is spent around showing that he's really not one, and Yorkie, who you could probably make a case that he represents the "just following orders" type of Nazi, but that'd still ignore his role in the film as being an innocent child who is there to point out all the hypocrisy of Nazi ideology. The film takes a pretty clear stance that the Nazis were monsters and the people who enabled them were just as responsible for their atrocities as the Nazis themselves by way of showing that both of Jojo's parents made the choice to resist, even if that resistance came at a huge cost.
The movie absolutely has tonal problems for sure, but rendering the Nazis as toothless isn't a real problem the film has.
I didn't think this movie was toothless at all, I think people have strangely rigid requirements for a movie like this
I felt like it took more of a mel brooks approach where it clowns nazis so hard that their ideology completely falls apart. I can't remember what she said but I'm thinking of the scene in the pool where the one nazi lady is off to the side and then leans in to interject something about Jews that is insanely absurd. lindsay ellis' video about the satire paradox seems relevant to this discussion where she talks about why actual nazis co-opted american history x vs. why they didn't co-opt the producers despite both movies being critical of nazism. it's because one just absolutely takes the piss and makes a complete mockery of nazis whereas the other presents a more grounded realistic approach where the message of the movie can be divorced from the imagery and actually appeal to the group that it's attempting to be critical of.
also some of the subtle and not so subtle goysplaining in this thread is a little ehhhhhhhh
I felt like it took more of a mel brooks approach where it clowns nazis so hard that their ideology completely falls apart. I can't remember what she said but I'm thinking of the scene in the pool where the one nazi lady is off to the side and then leans in to interject something about Jews that is insanely absurd. lindsay ellis' video about the satire paradox seems relevant to this discussion where she talks about why actual nazis co-opted american history x vs. why they didn't co-opt the producers despite both movies being critical of nazism. it's because one just absolutely takes the piss and makes a complete mockery of nazis whereas the other presents a more grounded realistic approach where the message of the movie can be divorced from the imagery and actually appeal to the group that it's attempting to be critical of.
also some of the subtle and not so subtle goysplaining in this thread is a little ehhhhhhhh
Thank you. This is kind of the point I wanted to make but couldn't find the words.
The jew jokes made aren't intended to be funny to the audience. The ridiculousness of what is said and many of the Nazis actually believing it to be true is what I found hilarious. Some are even used once more later in the film and the scene plays completely differently bcuz we r faced with the dangers of such moronic thinking.
Finally saw it tonight, and it's brilliant. After reading some reactions I can understand why this thread isn't larger even if it bums me out. The performances were fantastic, my god is Scarlett Johansson's character written well.
I thought it tackled many different topics given the context and addressed them smartly. It's one of my favorite movies in quite a while.
I'm glad to see this breakdown here, because it needs to be said. The bold is an astounding take to me if you were paying attention from the very beginning right to the end.
it's sad when you have to write in big letter SATIRE on the poster for people to get it, lmao
I'm sure the movie is great though, will probably watch it this week-end
I'm sure the movie is great though, will probably watch it this week-end
Holy shit it's not that people don't understand it's satire. It's that its satire-game (especially for Waititi) is weak as hell.
I've said it before but it feels like a sanitised Wes Anderson rip off.