Jojo Rabbit (2019): more than a movie about Nazis

in #movie3 years ago (edited)

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The idea of friendly interaction between a child and an imaginary friend perhaps seems a somewhat trite idea in the world of cinema, however, that this unreal character is a playful Hitler, can not be qualified as little less than controversial. Under this approach, the singular character of its director, the New Zealander Taika Waititi, who confesses in an interview his inclination to make works that border on turbulent limits and that could "end his career".

Despite this particular way of generating controversy (and media coverage) by transgressing the limits of creativity with real events, the first previews of Jojo Rabbit already allowed us to identify several predictable points of reference. Although the multiplicity of Hollywood dramas about the horrors of World War II and the Nazi regime have privileged treatments that exclude comedy, the impulse to subvert this rule appears in such well-known films as The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940), To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942), and in Mel Brooks' famous "Springtime for Hitler" segment in The Producers (1968). For the same reason, these three celebrated representations of Hitler in a comic key have been the almost obligatory point of reference to talk about the work of the New Zealand filmmaker.

The subject of facism is usually taken quite seriously since there are obviously people, especially among those who suffered the horrors of the Nazi side during World War II, but the examples of Chaplin, Lubitsch and Brooks are far from isolated provocations. From the omnipresent Hitler chasing Donald Duck in Der Fuehrer's Face (Jack Kinney, 1943) to his multiple theatrical incarnations in Hitler, a film about Germany (Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1977), to the absurdist versions of zombie Nazis (the Dead Snow saga), surfers (Surf Nazis Must Die), and, even, sharks (Nazi Sharks), the fact is that the relationships between Nazis and comedy seem to occur almost naturally.

This does not mean that Jojo Rabbit can be accused of failing for a simple lack of "originality". On the contrary, rather than reviewing the polemicist or "daring" aspect that highlights its publicity machinery, one should think about how Waititi inserts himself into this comic tradition. The fact that the protagonist is a child leads us, once again, to think of an external reference, in this case Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997). However, Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is presented as a character with greater agency than the Italian boy, even in the face of the imaginary presence of his idol/führer (played by Waititi himself).

Jojo Rabbit begins with Jojo attending a strict Hitler youth camp. The introduction works similarly to other teen movies set in camps, harkening back to more of an American comedy schema. The figure of the camp's quirky but endearing guardian appears, as well as older youths who bully the younger ones. The comic effect is given, precisely, by the ability to recognize the material in a narrative sense, but altered in its visual imagery. Instead of including traditional physical dexterity tests, the Nazi wannabes perform exercises such as mass book burning. This gag, which on paper might sound provocative, is introduced within the codes of Nazi paroxysm that the film's director applies in every scene. This will be, at first, the comic basis of the film, and what allows Waititi to present a Hitler with expressions and body movements closer to a Disney cartoon character than to the particular aggressiveness of Chaplin's Hinkel.

Something similar happens in the credit scenes that follow the introduction. The film mixes archival footage of Hitler and Nazi parades (some taken from the classic work of Leni Riefenstahl, the director at the center of Sontag's essay) with "Komm, gib mir deine hand," the German version of the Beatles' hit "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The counterpoint created between the Liverpool 4's song about teenage love and the images of a genocidal regime is immediately produced, its effect heightened by the use of the German version. In a way, it is not so much the anachronism of the relationship that introduces the comic element as the very appearance of German in a work so recognized for its English version. It is probably thanks to Chaplin's extended version, again, that the very sound of the German can be used as a comic effect in itself.

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A couple of scenes later, and to his horror, Jojo discovers the young Jewish girl Elsa Korr hidden in the wall of his late sister's room. Hidden by his own mother played by Scarlett Johansson, Jojo finds himself unable to turn Elsa in to the Gestapo, wary of the threat of having his mother executed as well. Faced with this situation, the little Nazi decides to use the situation to his "advantage" to conduct a series of interviews with the teenager that will allow him to write a book on the identification of phenotypical traits of the Jewish population. The plan not only fails in the face of the ingenuity of Elsa's answers, but also causes the contradictions to increase once Jojo begins to generate feelings towards the refugee.

It is in this sentimental relationship where Jojo's learning and affections lead him to question his commitment to the Nazi doctrine. By focusing on the young Nazi Jojo and the Jewish girl Elsa (two supposed enemies) falling in love, Waititi begins to demonstrate the absurdity of fascist superstitions through the eyes of a child. While Jojo's early beliefs about the horns possessed by Jews pass as the obtuseness of a fanatic in childhood, they also harken back to the very attempts to give biological foundations to the German superiority that characterized Nazi ideology.

Once Jojo's conviction begins to wane, the more dramatic part of the film takes on greater presence. In contrast to the comic irreverence of the early scenes, the second half is a reminder of the most horrifying aspect of the Nazi machine. These scenes, which include an extended segment in which the protagonist observes several dead bodies on the ruins, seem to enter as a sense of "responsibility" of the child protagonist. It is at this point that the director's approach is even less controversial, making a series of reminders of the Nazi genocide through situations that feel, at their worst, like cheap shots. There is a search for a balance between the comic and the tragic in which Waititi reveals a certain shielding against possible criticism of his more irreverent side. In this sense, it would be necessary to think more deeply about the relationship between Jojo Rabbit and his reactions, and how they influence our way of reading "Nazi comedies".

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