Review : Jojo Rabbit

 #JojoRabbit

--Movie on Hotstar Premium

At the peak of Nazi supremacy during the second world war in Germany and incidentally in Europe , Charlie Chaplin with his satire 'The Dictator' , was the only artist who had the balls to sneer at Hitler.

His single movie did what millions of Reichsmarks did for Hitler with the propaganda that Goebbels had administered. The only object of the film other than the vilification of the dictator was to create hatred for war. Despite the fact that it lacked a contemporary socio-political enlightenment of 'propaganda' which is so much important today in our world of instant social media.

The 2019 film 'JoJo Rabbit' based upon the book 'Caging Skies' ,written by Christine Leunens and directed by Taika Waititi is a brilliant war film , leaning towards comedy and/or satire and fills the gap created by Chaplin's 'The Dictator'.

It talks about a timid ten year old Hitler and Nazi fanatic boy - Jojo , his anti Nazi mother , Jews with their persecution , antisemitism and their perception created by propaganda. Jojo wishes to be brave and hallucinates talking to Hitler (Munnabhai and Mahatma Gandhi) and wants to prove himself to be a blue eyed Aryan , and as such joins the Boy scout army wing. The crazy trainers ask the cadets to do insane and gory stuff ,in order to make men out of boys, like killing a rabbit by wringing its neck , and Jojo denies killing the rabbit and instead helps him try to escape ,following which, Jojo is christened 'Jojo Rabbit', since he's fragile like that rabbit. He meets with an accident with a hand grenade , while trying to prove himself again, and barely survives.

His mother ,played by Scarlett Johansson, is a gutsy woman who's husband, somewhere, is fighting a war against Hitler (NOT Germany!). She has harboured a young seventeen year old Jew girl- Elsa , concealed from the hungry eyes of cold-blooded Gestapos. She lets Jojo be a Nazi and get to know what's that being like instead of showering him with sermons of humanity. She lets him fail , fall ,explore the world as it was then , hate her and still she loves and worries about him. She's his friend and his father at the same time and has an out of phase political ideology.

Jojo accidentally discovers this hiding girl , and realizes that she is a Jew which Adolf- his friend , has asked him to eliminate. He has been brain washed to believe that Jews were a mixed breed of giants ,humans and wolves , that they had horns , and they hung upside down from the ceiling - like bats! Jojo starts learning about Jews from Elsa, who incidentally is the friend of his dead sister.

Waititi has woven magic in some scenes between Jojo and Elsa. Jojo is a gentle and an adorable human at core and thusly comforts poor Elsa , by reading fake letters from her far-flung boyfriend , or by bringing her biscuits and bread.

One such powerful scene is when his mother is identified and executed. Poor Jojo is chasing a butterfly and finds his mother hanging on a noose, he holds on to her shoes and sits there looking at her abjectly.

The war ends and so does Jojo's custody of Elsa and he kicks out Adolf out of the window .

Once Jojo had asked Elsa what's the first thing she would do once the war is over. " Dance" she says , and they dance!

The movie has a remarkable grip over the audience (at least over me) to its last moment , with its needed background score , passionate story , persuasive direction and crisp editing . Roman Griffin Davis as the young Jojo has mimicked the multilayered character with a lot of integrity. So has Scarlett Johansson , Taika Waititi as Adolf ,Thomasin Mckenzie as Elsa , and watching them on screen is a treat.

Books and poetry have the vigor to change the course of history , of tyranny , of darkness and insensitivity and Rilke is the one who changes it for Jojo. Rilke is the favourite poet of Elsas boyfriend , and the movie ends with following all-powerful lines by Rilke , in line with the story..

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final!!

---

Abhijit J

3Paresh Jayshree Manohar, Hemant Pawar and 1 other