A hilarious piece of political satire that isn't afraid to be serious

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2020)

We live in dangerous times. In this era of political regression, racists, xenophobes, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, white separatists, and fascists, once confined to the periphery of civilised society, have wormed their way back into the cultural mainstream, preaching hate and intolerance under the guise of terms such as "nationalism" and "patriotism". Meanwhile, politicians validate such groups by doing precisely nothing to curtail them and refusing to condemn them ("very fine people on both sides" and so forth). Scholars and sociocultural anthropologists have posited that hateful right-wing ideologies are more validated now than at any time since the rise of fascism, the best known example of which is, of course, the Third Reich.
And so, it's entirely fitting that a film set in this very milieu, which argues that love, tolerance, and kindness can defeat hateful indoctrination, has come along at this precise moment. Based loosely on the 2004 novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, Jojo Rabbit is a political satire written and directed by Taika Waititi. Positing that the first casualty of indoctrination is objective truth, Waititi follows in the footsteps of filmmakers such as Charles Chaplin (The Great Dictator (1940)), Mel Brooks (The Producers (1967)), Roberto Benigni (La vita è bella (1997)), and even Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds (2009)) in attempting to defang Nazi ideology by rendering it utterly absurd. Marketed as an "anti-hate satire", the film has no easy task - to use Nazism as the (mostly) humorous background to what is essentially a bildungsroman, without it seeming exploitative or dismissive. And Waititi manages this tricky balancing act exceptionally well. The satire and slapstick elements are as funny as anything in his filmography, and the film's more serious moments (of which there are several) arrive like an absolute gut-punch. Jojo Rabbit is, in fact, that rarest of films - a comedy where the serious moments feel completely earned and a drama where the comedy enhances the seriousness.
Großdeutsches Reich, 1945. In the fictional town of Falkenhem, ten-year-old Jojo Betzler (an astonishing debut by Roman Griffin Davis) lives with his whimsical mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson doing probably the best work of her career) and his imaginary best friend - none other than Hitler himself (a ludicrously over the top Waititi). Believing absolutely in his duty to the state, Jojo and his actual flesh-and-blood friend Yorki (a hilarious Archie Yates) attend a Hitlerjugend camp run by the cynical Cpt. Klenzendorf (a powerful performance by Sam Rockwell that was outrageously ignored by the Academy), who was forced to leave the front line upon losing an eye. However, after an accident with a grenade, Joho is sent home. As he recovers, Rosie persuades Klenzendorf, who was demoted after the incident, to give him some work, and so he's employed to distribute propaganda around town. Life is dull but straightforward. That is until he learns his mother has been hiding a young Jewish girl, Elsa Korr (a nuanced performance from Thomasin McKenzie), in a crawlspace in their house.
Perhaps Jojo Rabbit's most laudable component is how well Waititi balances the disparate tones, which is a hell of a lot better than Benigni did. The film mixes slapstick humour, caricature, satire, dramatic irony, and hope, but never does it seem like its ignoring or trivialising real suffering. When the comedy is dropped and Waititi gets serious, the tonal shifts pack a shocking punch, and it's because they're so well integrated into the overarching comic structure - if you take away the humour and the satirical edge, the film's darker elements simply don't work as well - it's the contrast that makes each element all the more powerful. Waititi's tonal intentions are indicated right from the beginning, as stock footage of German children performing 'Heil Hitlers' is scored (unashamedly anachronistically) by the German version of The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (1963). Also crucially important to the film's tonal qualities are the bright, colourful palette employed by director of photography Mihai Malaimare Jr. and the whimsical Oscar-nominated production design by Waititi's regular designer, Ra Vincent. Together, they speak to the fact that this is Jojo's worldview rather than objective reality, with the look of the film reminding me a great deal of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). It sure doesn't look like any World War II movie you're ever likely to have seen.
Thematically, the film examines multiple issues; the devotion of motherhood, the importance of kindness in defeating indoctrination, the disconnect between an unchallenged ideology and a complex reality, the predetermined attitudinal stance towards the Other, the clash between doing what one knows to be right and what one is expected to do, the fact that good people can be found even in the worst of circumstances. Klenzendorf's arc is especially telling in this respect. Introduced as a hyperbolic caricature, the source of some of the film's biggest early laughs, as things progress, we realise there's considerably more to his character than initially thought, and he commands what's easily the most moving scene in the whole film. This is Jojo's story, however, with much of the runtime concerned with his attempts to rationalise the cognitive dissonance between what he's been taught and what he can see with his own eyes.
Of course, although set in 1945, Jojo Rabbit is really about the here and now. Essentially, it mocks extremism, people who hate based on ethnicity or religion, with Jojo's belief that Jews are demonic figures capable of powerful magic standing in for people who believe all Muslims are terrorists or all Mexicans are rapists. In this sense, the film isn't about Nazis at all; their role is allegorical. Rather it's partly about the role adults play in inculcating children into hate and partly about exposing the power of propaganda to subvert truth. But so too is it about rising above such ideology, no matter how ingrained it might be, finding the individualistic humanity in the Other, behind the political cliché. And although all of this is presented humorously, it never becomes didactic or monolithically preachy - Waititi balances his tones too well.
If I were to criticise any element of the film, it would be that Waititi undeniably glosses over some of the more horrific atrocities carried out during the War. The Nazis in the film are, by design, cartoonish, which s done so as to render them as easily dismissed figures to be scorned. The reality, of course, was far darker, and it certainly wouldn't have hurt to have at least one Nazi who isn't a figure of fun. In this sense, the film doesn't represent the awful truth, but it never claims to; this isn't a reality-based examination of Nazism, nor does it try to be.
Jojo Rabbit is beautiful, emotional, heartfelt, and devastating, but mostly hilarious and always hopeful. It's an extraordinarily sweet film without ever becoming saccharine, as Waititi strikes a perfect balance between comedy, tragedy, and drama. It's a very funny World War II film which imparts a vital message for our confused and divided world of today - if we let them, love will always trump hate, hope will always light a way through the darkness. But only if we let them.