‘Jojo Rabbit’ is the latest film from one of the best filmmakers of the decade, Taika Waititi. You may know Taika from ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, ‘The Mandalorian’, or my personal favourite: ‘What We Do in the Shadows’. He has always had a bit of a sarcastic approach to well, basically, his whole life, and ‘Jojo Rabbit’ comes directly in line with this satirical style of comedy.

I’ve seen ‘Jojo Rabbit’ too many times at this point, and every time I’ve noticed something new, but the main theme that really makes this movie so good is that it tells you a story we’ve all heard but through a much more unique medium. Satire. Hollywood has made fun of World War 2 well… a lot, especially Adolf Hitler himself, with Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’, ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ - hell, even ‘Kung Fury’ counts.

But what is so unique about ‘Jojo Rabbit’ is its ability to balance both a dramatic and thoughtful storyline on top of absurdist humour. And that’s the genius of ‘Jojo Rabbit’. Storytelling through Absurdity. While some people were quick to judge the film as making light of the atrocities committed by the Nazi Party, the movie is filled to the brim with the most absurd portrayal of Nazi Germany. The film showcases Adolf Hitler through the imagination of a 10 year old boy, who is flamboyant, eccentric and a complete opposite to his real-life inspiration.

But as the film progresses, and Jojo learns more about the horrible ideals he is fighting for, his own perception of Hitler deteriorates. We see imaginary Hitler get more and more calm as time passes, and less flamboyant. Nearer to the end of the film as Jojo’s compassion for Elsa grows, Hitler becomes more true-to-life, as we see him shouting, appearing less frequently, and verbally attacking the information that Jojo is learning. It’s a metaphor for his own belief in his country. Hitler isn’t just an imaginary friend, it’s the embodiment of Jojo’s morals, essentially a Nazi version of the devil on your shoulder. In the end, he quite literally throws these ideals out of the window after realising that everything he knew about the Nazis was a lie.

Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) has dinner with his imaginary friend Adolf (Writer/Director Taika Waititi), and his mother (Scarlett Johansson). Photo by Kimberley French. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

And this is the most absurd you can get, I mean, a 10 year old boy telling Hitler to fuck off and then kicking him out of a window is nowhere even close to making light of how evil he really was. The film explores how cruel the Nazi Party was, through the death of Jojo’s mother – arguably the most hard hitting scene in the entire film – on top of the creepiness of Stephen Merchant’s character. Let’s break these two things down.

Jojo’s mother is shown as a compassionate, struggling mother both trying to take care of her Nazi-obsessed son while also rebelling against the cruel policies of the Nazis. Oh, and on top of that, she’s doing one of the most dangerous things a German can do in the 40s. She’s hiding a Jewish girl in her house. Not only do we see her try to maintain a happy face while around her son, we see the side of her where she is out there trying to make a difference by sharing revolutionary texts across town and secretly opposing the war. She does well at hiding her struggles in front of Jojo and Elsa but we come close to seeing her lose the façade during the scene at the dinner table when she pretends to be Jojo’s father. While she saves it and goes back to putting a smile on her face, we know that she has a lot going on.

One of the most obvious repetitions in the film on top of the biggest foreshadowing of all is when we see Jojo’s mother’s shoes constantly. There’s a specific scene where the shot lingers on her feet and we don’t understand the meaning of this until we see the same set of shoes hanging from a rope. It’s gut-wrenching, and amazing storytelling. The audience really get a punch to the stomach realising how those legs full of life are now pale and still.

Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis in the film JOJO RABBIT. Photo by Kimberley French. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

‘Jojo Rabbit’s ability to balance this intricate, raw storytelling with absurdist satire is genius. Let’s talk about one of the most stressful scenes in the film. The Gestapo search. When the Gestapo unexpectedly knock on Jojo’s door and introduce themselves, we’re put into one of the most uncomfortable situations you can find yourself. There are dozens of films with scenes like this, with the most notable one coming to mind being the opening of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Basterds’.

However, as Stephen Merchant himself points out, the portrayal of the Gestapo in ‘Jojo Rabbit’ is that they are quite ridiculous and it actually adds to their creepiness and references their origins. The Gestapo in real life were what most people call the Secret Police of Nazi Germany, and they would travel around Germany in search of “enemies of the state”.

In reality, the Gestapo were actually just German bureaucrats who were given a badge of authority and a task. They were often “middle-class individuals with law degrees or doctorates.” In fact, a lot of them were not even in the Nazi Party. The fact that they were usually these disgraced businessmen rather than actual Nazi figures makes them that much more appalling and disgusting for allowing the atrocities of the Holocaust to happen in return for keeping their middle-class jobs and roles in society.

Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, Sam Rockwell and Roman Griffin Davis in the film JOJO RABBIT. Photo by Kimberley French. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Merchant says that he wanted to show the Gestapo as both “buffoonish and intimidating” in his performance, and I think it works well as a way of making fun of the Gestapo in showing them as immature bureaucrats who just got lucky and got a badge of power for no reason, despite being as he calls “weak, pathetic people.”

Taika points out that the reason behind the Heil Hitler gag whenever someone enters the room is not only to add that satirical style to the scene but also as a way to mock the ridiculous policies of the Nazis. In Germany at the time, Heil Hitler was a genuine greeting that people used to say hello to one another. In fact, it was mandatory for all citizens to do so, and the overuse of the greeting in the film is a funny and clever way to point out just how inefficient, stupid and really ridiculous the Nazis actually were. It’s barely a gag, it’s culturally accurate.

To put that even further, the film literally starts with Jojo practicing his Heil and then running around the town screaming and Heiling Hitler at other people. It’s a perfect film opener, as its both absurd in its method of showing a boy running around heiling at the top of his voice but it’s an amazing introduction to Jojo and right off the bat gives us this impression that this boy is not only obsessed with Hitler but he is willing to show the world it.

Just from a simple gag, we learn a ton about Jojo straight from the offset, and we see tropes like this and other jokes contribute all the more to storytelling regardless of how satirical or absurd they are. And that is the continued genius of Taika Waititi’s ‘Jojo Rabbit’.

Writer/Director Taika Waititi on the set of JOJO RABBIT. Photo by Larry Horricks. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

References

Inglorious Basterds. 2009. [Film] Directed by Quentin Tarantino. United States: The Weinstein Company.

Jojo Rabbit. 2019. [Film] Directed by Taika Waititi. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Macias, A., 2016. The tragically powerful story behind the lone German who refused to give Hitler the Nazi salute. [Online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-tragically-powerful-story-behind-the-lone-german-who-refused-to-give-hitler-the-nazi-salute-a7214386.html

McDonough, F., 2017. In: The Gestapo: The Myth and Reality of Hitler’s Secret Police. s.l.:Skyhorse Publishing, p. 293.

Waititi, T. & Merchant, S., 2019. Taika Waititi and Stephen Merchant Break Down a Scene from 'Jojo Rabbit' [Interview] (30 October 2019). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y3FRGCG7o8