JoJo Rabbit new film from Taika Waititi

As I watched this film I was aware of how the tone changed, absolutely. But I had no problem with that. For me, it added to my appreciation of it.

 

Those were both different movies about different things. It seems that the main thing here is, that you don’t like getting pieces of serious dramatic chocolate mixed in with you comic peanut butter. At least not when it deals with Nazis, which seems to be the case with several reviewers.

 

It's not quite that I don't want them intermingled - I want them intermingled well. In this film we've got a crazed woman sending children on suicide missions treated as pure satire. It's even just a passing joke - the audience isn't meant to consider her actions, or the deaths of those children, for longer than it takes to tell the joke. That sits very poorly next to scenes that ask the audience to be emotionally engaged and sympathetic. And the film jumps back and forth between those tones, and not well.

 

It really doesn’t jump back and forth. There’s no scene that isn’t in the child’s POV. He does harden over the course of the story, but he’s simply not capable of assessing the ramifications you refer to.

 

I thought it was funny that they used the German version of I want to hold your hand in one of the opening sequences.

I wonder how hard they had to convince Apple and how much they had to pay?

 

Here's an interview with the director in the Jerusalem Post:

Springtime for Taika Cohen and ‘Jojo Rabbit’

Waititi firmly believes that not only is it all right to ridicule Nazis, but that making fun of them can have a positive impact.

“It helps to take away their power. They operated on the idea of fear... but when you get people to laugh at the small details, you can see how ridiculous and illogical it was, it was built upon all these ideas that didn’t make any sense.”

Referencing Groucho Marx’s famous story about how he wasn’t allowed into a country club that wouldn’t admit Jews, and then asked, “My daughter is only half Jewish, can she go in the pool up to her knees?” Waititi said, “That’s why comedy is so important. Through it, you can communicate with people in a way that drama can’t. You’re laughing at the truth, and the audience lets down their guard... you can convey a more powerful message that way.”​

 

There is no fixed amount - sync rights are negotiated every time. Hopefully Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia offered a discounted rate.

 

why?

 

I thought juxtaposing the old footage of female Nazi fanatical crowd reactions with one of the crucial songs of Beatlemania (and the accompanying female crowd reactions that it conjures up) is something that George would surely have appreciated. Paul, not so much, I'd guess.

 

I just saw the trailer and really want to see this.

 

Because it's a tiny little art house film? Because it's an anti-Nazi film? Because some things are worth not extracting the maximum amount of dollars over? Because as @Veni Vidi Vici pointed out, the British have been making fun of Nazis since they rose to power?

 

Jojo matures as the movie progresses. That's what changes, and his POV becomes less childish along the way.

Makes perfect sense that the movie gets less cartoony as it goes...

 

Nah, Stephen Merchant and his fellow "Hogan's Heroes" rejects are cartoony as can be, and that's near the end of the film.

 

Well, it's not a flawless progression - after all, he's a kid, and the nature of the warfare warped his perception, I would think. You can't expect consistency from a 10-year-old.

Maybe you're right - I dunno. I feel like the movie gets more dramatic in a natural way, but I'll think about it more when I see the movie again on BD.

I much prefer your "Flintstones" posts!

 

It worked for me. They were menacing enough without having to act all menacing. They were true believers that thought little JoJo was one of them - why would they act all menacing and threaten him? He was a perfect little Aryan"I wish more of our young boys had your blind fanaticism."

 

Very interesting review by a Jewish writer:

Jojo Rabbit review - How a Jewish critic feels about Taiki Waititi's satire

So when the opening credits of Jojo Rabbit played over archival footage of wide-eyed Nazis shouting with ecstasy in the streets to the tune of The Beatles' I Wanna Hold Your Hand (in German of course) I felt a bit sick.

This is the same tonal dissonance that haunts Jojo Rabbit over the next one hour and 45 minutes – to sometimes greater and sometimes lesser effect.

Footage of real Nazi rallies without any of the shouting was uncanny, to say the least, and nauseating. What Waititi wanted to accomplish, he accomplished. You want to sing along, you want to tap your feet to the familiar tune but to do so equates you with the countless people who followed Hitler's final solution and the murder of millions of Jews, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, Romani and others.​

 

That was kinda the same point made by The Residents on the "Third Reich 'n' Roll" album!

 

Back in the day, when there were revival theaters I saw Touch of Evil. A stoned guy in the audience loudly laughed through the movie. Sometimes the communal aspect of movies falls short.

Back on topic, Hitler (and his current cronies) deserve to be laughed at and this movie does that with great heart.

 

The Hans and Franz of Nazi chic - the film unwittingly comes across as a parody of Third Reich films as opposed to a satire of Hitler and the Nazis.

The boy did a good job of acting, but the Hitler angle hurt the film badly. It would have been more effective without that angle - a different film, but better. At times the film is too cutesy in a deliberate manner. There have been other films that have satirized this subject matter (To Be or Not to Be somewhat effectively; Life is Beautiful ineffectively) and it is always arguably in poor taste.

 

Another story from the news that I quite enjoyed:

Golden Globe Awards: Roman Griffin Davis says Jojo Rabbit high was 'kicking Hitler in the balls'

 

I went and saw it last night. It was okay, I must admit I fell asleep for a bit in the middle of it. Not quite as good as I was hoping.

I think 10 mins or so of trimming could have helped.

 

I'm so thankful the film got several Oscar nominations:

• Best picture
• Best supporting actress for Scarlett Johansson
• Best adapted screenplay
• Best costume design
• Best production design
• Best editing

The thing that's most interesting about the last three is that those are determined by their peers - for instance film editors vote on a short list and determine the nominees, and the old condolence thing that the only part that really matters is getting the nomination is actually true. Because the vast majority of the membership of the academy is actors, who don't really know good film editing from bad, and just vote for their favorite films.

This was both my wife and my favorite film of 2019, and she was busy on Twitter this morning. One tweet of hers got retweeted quite a bit, about people who honestly didn't get the film. She said:

Why do so many people hate the idea that a fanatical child can change for the good when his propaganda-fueled worldview is challenged, leading to love and compassion for people he'd previously been taught to hate and fear? It's a beautiful story of humanity winning over hate.​

 

How’s his German accent? Play him Komm, gib mir deine Hand and leave it at that.