If you’re a fan of Taika Waititi pre-Thor: Ragnarok, then you know very well how the New Zealander’s film-making style works, how he plays with the genre of comedy by adding layers of originality to them and turning them into a pleasurable watch. He makes satires for a living and doesn’t seem to be getting tired of making them; in fact, he’s even reached the highest point of his career when one of his creations received multiple Academy Award nominations. But these nominations don’t necessarily equate to the quality that Waititi has put forth in the conception of Jojo Rabbit, a tonally disruptive coming of age story of a Nazi boy whose logic is obfuscated by the beliefs of the group that he belongs to, where the experience of being in Germany during the 1940’s, at a time where Jews die in vain and Hitler’s cronies glorify violence and power-tripping, doesn’t make sense at all and ends up becoming more conventional and by-the-book than the raw, outlandish feel that Waititi brings every time to the table.
The film follows Johannes Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), nicknamed “Jojo,” who lives with his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) at Germany in the middle of World War II. He and his best friend Yorki (Archie Yates) attend a youth camp that trains them to be a Nazi by learning ambush techniques, burning books and throwing grenades. Aside from his best friend, he also has an imaginary friend: Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) himself, who seems to act moronic and child-like, to the point where he even offers cigarettes to the ten year-old and persuades him to do acts of mischief. Jojo is brimming with eagerness to become a member of the Third Reich until his encounter with a Jew, a young girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) whom his mother is hiding in their humble abode, changes his perspectives on life and makes him question all the politics involved between the two opposing parties and their respective ideologies in life.
The intent of Waititi is obvious from the get-go, from Hitler as an imaginary friend serving as the child’s conscience due to the lack of a father figure (and because he’s a mere figment of Jojo’s imagination, he only knows so much as the boy) to how the indoctrinated child ends up having an epiphany about the horrors of the Nazi. He makes it clear that the film is quote-unquote an anti-hate satire, that the film is an indirect reflection of blind fanaticism in the guise of the titular character as he fantasizes Hitler as an idol but also ends up realizing his wrongdoings in the end. The problem with Jojo Rabbit is not the intentions, but the delivery of how the message is made to come across its audiences, how it walks on a tonal tightrope. The film—with its unapologetic and sanitized nature—tries to dwell on the notion that not all Nazis are bad and that one should never judge a book by its cover. And while that idea sounds fine, Jojo has never really had any proper form of epiphany regarding the problematic stances of the party he idolizes. As the story progresses, we see every other supporting character acting not as human beings but as plot devices for Jojo and at one point, we are made to think that Jojo has reached that sense of realization that Nazis are bad only to end up regressing back to where he was towards the beginning of the movie with Elsa; and in effect, the authenticity of Jojo’s growth as both a child and as a member of the German society gets shot by a rocket launcher.
Waititi knows (and knows well) that for a satire to work, one needs to poke fun at things and make something controversial (like dealing with the life of a Nazi towards the end of World War II) be full of color and fun. The superficial aspects of the film at first glance feel like they are anchors necessary for the film to become what it wants to be, a feel-good family comedy that supposedly speaks massive volumes on the importance of awareness in a world full of people that have remained ignorant and blind, but instead becomes a ball-and-chain. The film becomes heavily reliant on the Wes Anderson-like framing and visuals, along with the dark humor Waititi has always been known for. It has become invested on these to the point that Waititi has forgotten the importance of milieu, historical appropriation and character analyses. The film’s technicalities end up being a mere front to the film’s finished product: an abstracted misfire on the (non)-realizations of an ignorant boy. For a second or two, one gets blinded by the beauty of Jojo Rabbit‘s technical achievement. Once you get past all the familiar styles of Anderson and analyzes every single aspect of the film’s story, one realizes that this is no Moonrise Kingdom, that such a comparison is uncalled for considering how conceited and shallow everything is.
All of the other things that Waititi had done to the film are forgivable, but to have the audacity to twist the framework of Jojo’s mother, to reveal that she with her husband are freedom fighters all along is outright perplexing. What doesn’t make sense is how Jojo has been given the liberty to become a Nazi fantard, albeit a passionate one at that, when all along his mother is anti-Nazi. This opens up a can of worms regarding the background of the child’s parents and makes the film’s audience question not only the upbringing of Jojo but also the reason why this bit of secret has been hidden from Jojo. And just when character development is finally kicking in for both Jojo and his mother, nothing ever fully materializes when certain events hinder Jojo from understanding the importance of acceptance and awareness. This reasoning goes back to how the characters were made to act only as opportunities for Jojo to find his identity, but never being the humans that they are supposed to become.
The only consolation that the film brings is how well-acted and how beautiful-looking the spectacle is. Standing out from the crowd are Roman Griffin Davis, whose acting chops have been made evident in what may just be one of the best breakout performances of last year, Thomasin McKenzie, who has proven us time and again that she is no fluke after her dazzling rise to fame in Leave No Trace, and Stephen Merchant, who has shown his brilliance in acting after being cast for many supporting roles in the past that he can be a mean and scary Gestapo agent. The acting of the ensemble has been well-supported by the uncanny visuals of the film, in which despite being such a huge burden too in the development of the characters, cannot be denied how masterful the elements worked, from the production design all the way to the musical score. If anything, Jojo Rabbit should be given a massive recognition for being the best Wes Anderson film of the year that was never directed by Wes Anderson (and, from certain angles, that can be seen and looked at as a compliment).
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Jojo Rabbit is as good (or as bad) as it is going to get. To say that this is Waititi’s weakest film to date would be such a low blow for someone who has given the world a ton of amazing satires. It’s a shame how the intentions of the film did not fully come across, but it’s a lesson learned for people to take into consideration how character development contributes immensely to the beauty of the film’s story, especially since Jojo Rabbit is such a character-driven narrative. Waititi carried a double-edged sword by presenting this film to the public and having the balls to explore and show something as tendentious as a Nazi black comedy is worth a round of applause. But for sure, Jojo Rabbit is no Life is Beautiful.
Produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Jojo Rabbit is now showing exclusively in select Ayala Malls cinemas.
