Jojo Rabbit was a movie I was somewhat interested in but didn’t make an extra effort to see. I loved What We Do In The Shadows, liked Thor: Ragnarok, but Jojo never became a priority.
When it returned to theaters, I finally gave it a watch. Some negative reviews I read and the first 15-ish minutes of the movie finally articulated why I had little interest in it; the film’s use of slapstick and oafishness as satire/criticism of nazis was uncomfortable.
But, even putting aside the obvious objection of “what about The Great Dictator” (which is brilliant), the film’s progression removed such criticisms. It eventually became apparent that the satire of Jojo Rabbit is not found in “haha Nazis are dumb” slapstick, but is instead found in its whimsical portrayal of Jojo’s Nazi surroundings, using this whimsy as a means of perspective. His redemption is found through the harsh contrast of this perspective, and this leads to one of the film’s few genuinely positive uses of slapstick at the end, when it embraces childish imagination as a means of catharsis.
Moonrise Kingdom: Nazi Edition
The opening of the movie is where my “bad” discomfort (in the sense that I was uncomfortable with the artistic ambitions of the movie) was in full force. The idea of the 10 year old title character excitedly saying “Heil Hitler” with his imaginary best friend Hitler was just…off.
Things manage to get more uncomfortable when we get to camp and are introduced to the counselors. Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) is an idiotic, irresponsible drunkard who spends part of his introductory scene aimlessly firing his gun around children, and he clearly resents being there. Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) assists the children in an atrocious anti-Semitic drawing, furthering this depiction by making up an also atrocious story about the origin of Jewish ancestry.
This camp time “fun” progresses to Jojo being bullied by his fellow campers and counselors. He’s mocked over his inability to kill a rabbit, which leads to his new nickname. When he has another little pow-wow with his imaginary Hitler, he finds a newfound courage; he and his imaginary Hitler run in a silly, slow-mo sequence where he grabs a grenade out of Captain K’s hand during a presentation. Jojo throws this grenade, only for it to hit a tree, bounce back towards him, and seriously injure him. This injury is also played in a comical fashion, and the scene ends with Captain K telling the other kids calmly “don’t do that”, the comedy coming from the irony of his calm response to a life threatening event.
Jojo is sent to a hospital for his injuries, which don’t kill him but render him incapable of returning to camp. His mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson, giving what might be the ultimate example of “iffy accent but great performance”) “requests” that Jojo be given a job by kneeing Captain K in the groin. Jojo’s newfound job is setting up posters around, which is conveyed through a montage with a chorus of children playing in the background.
What I Thought He Was Doing
It’s all very whimsical. And it’s all very well shot and realized whimsy. And it all feels wrong and out of place. Even if we’re going to present Nazis in a “haha, look at these dumbasses” kind of way, is that…enough?
Even asking that question feels irresponsible. Imagine if someone is slapped on the wrist as a punishment for murder. Asking “is that enough?” in a non-rhetorical manner would be a grossly irresponsible question to ask when the answer is “of course not.”
While thinking about this, not long after Sam Rockwell is kneed in the groin, we see the lifeless bodies of hanging dissenters in the middle of Jojo’s hometown.
“You Must Not Avert Your Eyes”
Rosie stares directly at these bodies, while Jojo tries to look away. She doesn’t let him, grasping the top of his head to turn it in their direction. She tells him;
“Look.”
(I couldn’t help but think of that Herzog quote I just referred to when she does that).
There’s a sign on one of the bodies. Though the characters speak almost entirely in English, the sign is in German.
Jojo asks “what did they do?”
Rosie responds “what they could.”
A Punch To The Gut
This scene is a deliberate, harsh contrast of what we had previously seen in the movie (highlighted by the different language on the sign). These bodies, these deaths are new to Jojo. He thinks he’s just a little guy who gets to go to camp so he can support his idol. And so I realized the idiocy of characters like Captain K and Fraulein Rahm wasn’t Taika’s endgame for his Nazi criticism.
These characters are, first and foremost, the idiotic adults in a child’s story. They’re the jackass principal in a John Hughes comedy, whose oafishness is there as a means of showing how adults just don’t get it. Something similar can be said with the bullies; they’re big old meanies for mocking him, making him feel like he’ll never achieve his dream.
It’s the hanging bodies, the bodies he can’t yet look at, that show us his dream isn’t worth achieving.
He doesn’t know it yet, but he will.
The Horror of “Heil Hitler”
There are a few scenes in particular that drive this contrast home. This segment will look at the first.
Jojo discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa in their home. He doesn’t care for her at first, but keeps her presence a secret as he doesn’t want his mother to get in trouble.
The scene in question features gestapo who have come to inspect Jojo’s house. The gestapo have a relatively comedic presence; as they enter his house, one by one, they all say “Heil Hitler” to Jojo, and he responds in kind each time. The film has a shot of each man saying it and a shot of Jojo’s response, highlighting the repetition for comedic effect. When Captain K and his assistant also enter his house, though the editing isn’t quite the same, the same repetitive “Heil Hitler” gag occurs.
As they inspect the house, Jojo fears that Elsa will be found, until she makes her presence readily known. She gets away with this by claiming to be his sister, a lie they believe.
The importance of this scene is found in the distinction of Elsa’s response to the repetitive “Heil Hitler” trope. When the first man says it, we get a close-up of Elsa, where she is clearly horrified and hesitating.
She finally says it, hoping it’ll be the only time. But as we know, it’s not. And while the cinematography and editing between Jojo’s “Heil Hitler” scene and Captain K’s was not exactly the same, Elsa’s sequence gets a shot that makes her situation clearly stand out; we get a brief wide shot, showing the backs of the men as they once again repeat the phrase, with Elsa in the middle of this shot in the background. The men dominate the frame that she takes up little space in, to highlight the threat this situation has for her. She’s a seal in disguise in a room full of sharks.
This scene exists to show the contrast of the two perspectives. Jojo dealing with the phrase is presented as though it’s a thorn in his side, as if while trying to fight off a crocodile, there’s also a bee that won’t buzz off.
“Aw gosh, I can’t believe I have to keep saying those words.”
With Elsa, she’s being forced to praise a man who wants her and every single Jewish person dead.
It’s the furthest thing from a mere annoyance.
The Real Hitler
The second scene involves the imaginary Hitler.
The fact that Jojo’s imaginary Hitler is not the real deal is something the film embraces. When Jojo was putting up signs of Hitler earlier, it’s not Taika Waititi’s face on these signs, but the real Hitler’s face. But the most significant example of this is found when Jojo talks with the imaginary Hitler following the gestapo visit.
Hitler obviously berates Jojo for not revealing Elsa. His dialogue, which previously fit the bill for a silly imaginary friend, now fits the bill of a real Hitler. Whether or not it’s an actual Hitler speech, I don’t know, but it certainly sounds like it could be one, and the music in this scene is grim and unsettling.
The facade is fading.
Jojo Looks Again
The third scene in question features Jojo going out for some errands. The world around him is much grayer than it was before, but he sees a pretty blue butterfly, and follows it with a simple delight.
It’s a nice little moment for Jojo.
Having lowered himself to the ground to check out the butterfly, he rises, only to realize he’s by the hanging bodies again. And there’s one in particular that stands out;
His mother’s.
I’m having trouble describing exactly what Jojo does in response; he either grasps her legs (it’s all he can reach) or hugs them. He begins to tie her recognizable shoes (Jojo wasn’t very good at tying shoes earlier in the film) and then goes back to that desperate grasp/hug.
There’s a brief time jump, showing him sitting as he looks up at his mother.
(Fun fact: this is the only time I’ve ever cried while writing out a description of a movie scene)
This scene, perhaps more than any, highlights the contrast of Jojo’s perspective and the horrors of the real world, and Jojo can no longer look away.
War
Some time passes. Jojo and Elsa live their lives at Jojo’s home. Eventually, Jojo learns that Hitler’s committed suicide, and his town is invaded by the allies. The last and most significant of the contrasts is found with Fraulein Rahm. She’s doing her oafish bloodthirsty Nazi schtick, and is subsequently blown up by a bomb. The idea that this explosive death might itself be a gag is disproven by the following moment, as the smoke from the explosion dominates the frame and leaves Jojo horrified and confused.
“I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Something important about Jojo Rabbit is that it does not condemn childlike imagination and whimsy in and of itself. It condemns its misuse and the denial of its proper use. The film may contrast the whimsical elements with horrifying reality, but this horrifying reality is highlighting the truth that the whimsy was being used to cover up. It was being used to lie to Jojo, and he confronts this lie by way of confronting the imaginary Hitler.
At the end of the film, after the allies have won, and he and Elsa go out to the street and dance. But before this, he has a talk with his old imaginary best friend. While confronting this imaginary Hitler, this imaginary interpretation of the man who lied to him, the imaginary interpretation of the man who killed his mother, he doesn’t respond to this with a harsh reality.
Instead, he responds to his childish idolatry of Hitler with a childish hatred. Jojo kicks the sniveling, imaginary coward in the groin and right out a window, the way that I used to fight imaginary bad guys as a power ranger when I was four.
There’s nothing wrong with this. Jojo certainly seemed to be on a bad path, but his aversion to killing innocents from the get-go clearly indicated that his childish idolatry would have never become anything more. Whether or not it was Rosie hanging up there, he eventually would have looked. He eventually would have realized the horrifying reality of the situation before it was too late for him. Jojo was never going to be a Nazi.
And because Jojo acknowledged that, because he looked, he’s allowed to have that childish fantasy of saying “fuck off Hitler” before kicking him out a window.
And as long as we don’t forget the horrifying reality, we’re allowed to enjoy this imaginary child’s imaginary catharsis.
devilsadvocritic 