Year: 2019
Director: Taika Waititi
Country: New Zealand
Language: English
"Things are getting bad. Our only friends are the Japanese and, between you and me, they don't look very Aryan."
Satire is an effective tool against the Nazis. Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967) effectively took the power out of Hitler by making him an effeminate nitwit. 52 years later and there ain't any neo-nazi passionately singing "Springtime for Hitler". Undoubtedly, there will be no nazis praising the efforts of Taki Waititi's Jo Jo Rabbit. The film is an impressive endeavor that ultimately demonstrates that even little kids know better than to side with such nonsense.
Jo Jo Rabbit follows a lonely German boy named Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic.
Jo Jo Rabbit is a coming of age drama romance comedy war movie that succeeds other satire like The Producers because it not only humiliates nazi-ism by showing how stupid their ideology is, but also demonstrates their sociopathic barbarism & treats the protagonists of the film with the utmost respect and sincerity. This material could have easily fallen into poor taste with any other director, but Waititi is a master. It's like he's walking a tightrope while doing a fire baton juggling act.
Winning the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival (I was in Toronto when it was announced that Jo Jo Rabbit had won) Waititi's message of anti-hate proves powerful and good natured. It's a sentimental film that gets across the message that nazis, and anyone who associates with that ideology, is a self-centred self-serving asshole. Jo Jo eating soup while his imaginary friend Adolf dines on Unicorn, oddly enough, gets that point across very well.
Waititi's picture asks us to be curious, discuss and emphasize with different religions, races, genders, sexual preferences etc. rather than hate simply because we do not understand out of fear. Like To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Great Dictator (1940) I have a feeling Jo Jo Rabbit will be remembered for decades to come.
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