jojo rabbit…

My third trip to the cinema this year (and this includes two in the last three days!).

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit” - despite being told in advance that there were a couple of pretty poor reviews in The Guardian. But, hey, it came highly recommended from a couple of friends, so I decided to take the ‘risk’… and I’m REALLY pleased I did.

I enjoyed it immensely.

It’s a bizarre black comedy (the Watershed blurb described it as a “smart anti-hate WWII satire”) and is set in Germany in the last days of the war, where 10 year-old Jojo’s (Roman Griffin Davis) only friend is an imaginary (and idiotic) Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself)… but Jojo’s misguided, fanatical faith in the Hitler Youth is shaken when he discovers that his single mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic.

It’s a completely ludicrous scenario… and yet I thought it worked beautifully.

I found the funny bits (and there were lots) laugh-out-loud funny… and yet, the film was also able to capture the sadness, the pain and the absolute horror of war.

For the second time in a matter of days, I find myself writing the words: the “futility and horror of war” (in my “1917” review), but I also think the film powerfully highlighted the potential evil of ideology and its frightening consequences.

I thought all the actors were simply perfect in their roles (I previously omitted Sam Rockwell who played an army officer who runs the Hitler Youth camp and Jojo's 'other' best friend Yorki, played by Archie Yates)… and I also really loved the cinematography (which managed to incorporate beautiful colour palettes, clothes and interiors). At times, it even felt like a Wes Anderson film.

I went along not quite knowing what I was letting myself in for (and, yes, I absolutely accept that this film won’t be for ‘everyone’), but I absolutely LOVED it – even better than the brilliant “1917” film in my view (I know!). I needed a film that would make me laugh and this certainly did (and it very nearly made me cry too). Quite ridiculously perhaps, it also made me feel quite joyful and even strangely hopeful.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away (whisper: Germany lost the war), but I also thought the end of the film – when Jojo and the young Jewish girl start dancing on the street – was just PERFECT*.

PS: *They start dancing to David Bowie’s “Heroes” (the German version, of course) – one of my favourite songs… for lots of nostalgic reasons.

PPS: In an interview, director/writer Waititi said this: “When Hitler got into power in 1933, little by little, every single day or every week, there was just one small change. People recognised that it was wrong, but it wasn’t big enough to really get everyone up in arms. It wasn’t big enough until it became too late…”.