About Director :
Taika Waititi Taika Waititi, a New Zealander, a visual artist, actor, screenwriter and director. Taika's first short film "Two Cars One Night" was shortlisted for the 2005 Academy Awards. His other short film "Tamatu" is a story about a group of Maori soldiers who fought in Italy during World War II. It won many international awards and made it eligible for Oscars.
Movie Overview :
"Jojo rabbit" tells the life story of a boy who lived in the late Nazi control period. Jojo believed in Hitler, believed in Nazis, regarded Jews as demons, and invented a "Hitler" in his mind who "helped himself" at any time. Until Jojo discovered that in the wall of his house, his mother had hidden a Jewish girl. He found that the Jews may not be demons and not terrifying, they are just individuals like jojo...
01jojo kicked off the imaginary "Hitler" and moved from a fairy tale to reality
Domestic and foreign children, no matter where they are, they will have a magical fairy tale world of their own in their childhood. In the eyes of children, the fairy tale world in their minds is a reality. Like in "Hello, Old Time", Yu Zhouzhou in his childhood was always playing a protagonist game. In the game, he is the protagonist, can become the emperor's concubine and elope, can be a hero who saves the world and himself. Every child has his own fairy tale.
But think about it carefully, no matter where the children are, their fairy tale world is always related to the time they live in. That's the case with jojo. The core of his fairy tale is Hitler, and Hitler is the protagonist he wants to be. Therefore, it can be clearly seen how successful the hatred propaganda during the Nazi era was so successful that a child could worship Hitler from the heart and shout "Fight for Germany".
The success of Nazi propaganda is one aspect, but the gentle companionship of his mother also makes Jojo's heart kind. It can be seen that the "Hitler" in Jojo's mind is not so unforgivable, and even sometimes cute and indirectly helping Jojo. He will teach Jojo to use his own methods to resist the boys who laughed at him and shout as much as he wants. "Jojo rabbit!". The imaginary "Hitler" is actually a combination of the voice of the times and Jojo's own soul. All kinds of voices in the Nazi era are asking Jojo to ask the children to shout "heil hitler!" and that they must be brave enough to kill rabbits and enemies to kill Jews. But Jojo himself told himself (perhaps also in the gentle education of his mother) not to kill the rabbit. Throughout the whole process, he could see jojo breaking through "Hitler"'s thought blockade bit by bit, until finally kicking "Hitler" out of the window.
Like Elsa said to jojo: "You are not a pure Nazi, you are just a boy who longs to wear a uniform and become one of them. You do not belong to them." And jojo's little partner is very fat. I told Jojo a long time ago that Jews don’t look like bad people, just like us.
We have to wonder whether the "Hitler" in Jojo's mind can be considered sinful and bad. The film clearly shows that "Hitler" is somewhat different from the real Hitler. Every child’s fairy tale world has his own warrior or hero, who is the rainbow cat, the little swallow, or a certain hero in the martial arts drama. The protagonist in this brain is a neutral existence between good and evil, a self-expression of children's understanding of the world. The same is true for jojo's "Hitler". He is not evil. He is a window for the boy in the deep fairy tale to step into reality and understand the world by himself.
02 is a gentler jojo fairy tale than "A Beautiful Life", and also has a dark humorous anti-war core
I suspected it when watching "A Beautiful Life" Use this black humor to express the anti-war theme and understand whether the Nazi Jewish history is too muchGentle, but the appearance of "Jojo Rabbit" makes "Life is Beautiful" cruel.
"A Beautiful Life" was re-screened in 2019. "A Beautiful Life" describes the entire process of the Jews from being excluded to being slaughtered and then being rescued from the perspective of father and son. Despite showing the whole process, the humorous lies the father created for the children may still weaken the history of the Nazi slaughter of Jews. The Jews’ lives are described only in small pieces. “Jews and dogs are not allowed”, the painted Jewish horses, the censorship of uncles, and the separation of the elderly, children, women and men entering the concentration camp. All kinds of fragments show the cruelty of the Jewish massacre from the side.
and "jojo rabbit" is more gentle and healing, using the Jewish girl hidden in the wall to get along with jojo, showing that in the era of Nazi propaganda activities, a child can be destroyed. Can be saved. It does not express too much the evils of the Nazis and the suffering of the Jews, and uses the world of children to show what the Nazi atmosphere is like in the entire era.
Both films use gentle healing methods to depict the benevolent and beautiful existence in the background of the times, and both use black humor to irony and express anti-war ideas. It is precisely because I have learned about the history of the Jews during the Nazi period that I think the two films are too gentle, especially "Jojo Rabbit". But it is undeniable that both films are the best, and both will rank first in my annual film list. It also cuts into the perspective of children and uses black humor to irony. The core of the two is completely different. One expresses the greatness of fathers among Jews who were slaughtered, and one expresses the importance of mothers among Nazi children who slaughtered Jews and the children's self-healing and self-judgment.
03just keep going
The subtitle "Let everything happen to you: Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." [Go To The Limits of Your Longing] by Reine Maria Rilke.
“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand."
In your life, no matter what happens is happy or painful, please go forward bravely. No feeling is eternal, Feel all the feelings and go forward bravely. The next few sentences that are not shown after this are also important: After experiencing all kinds of difficulties and feeling the inevitable pain and happiness, everything you experience will make you experience a serious thing , Let you experience the weight contained in it, let you understand the world and life .
jojo is just like that. I experienced the joy of being with my mother, the normality and beauty of Nazi girls, the pain after the mother was killed, and the shock and joy that the Nazis did not find Jewish girls. It enabled him to truly step into the real world from the imaginary "Hitler" fairy tale world, understanding the normality of the Jews, the ignorance of the Nazis, the cruelty of war and the kindness of people.
