Ciao, cinemaphiles! Welcome to a special episode of The Fansplainers Film Cast: Ian and Dave agree!!!
This week the guys watched the newest film from New Zealand director Taika Waititi – Jojo Rabbit, a sad, funny, scary story of Jojo, a young boy growing up in WWII Germany and his imaginary friend, Hitler. It might sound glib, but it’s not – it’s heartfelt and touching and funny and…
Well, we’ll let Ian and Dave fansplain it for you.
Thanks for listening.
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Awesome review of an awesome film. The one point in particular that struck me was one Ian brings in that scene near the climax where Jojo is captured by the Russians and is about to be shot, but then is saved by Sam Rockwell’s character.
It reminded me a lot of the part in the novel Empire of the Sun (scene sadly not depicted in the film of the same name) where the main character is housed temporarily by the two US merchant marines, and you, as an adult reading this, fully understand what the plan is from the perspective of the one merchant marine, but the main character, in his innocence and naivety, has no concept of what the one man’s plan is. Add to this the fact that the boy is, like Jojo, living in war conditions full of chaos, and this further adds to the unpredicatability.
Anyway, ultimately it turns out okay for both of the main characters in these two scenes, but the tension leading up to that is pretty hard to bear.
I thought this was another fantastic role for Sam Rockwell to play Sam Rockwell. I’m glad there are opportunities out there for him to showcase his comedic talents.
I finally got around to seeing Jojo Rabbit thanks to your recommendation (and, okay, its Oscar nominations.) I didn’t think I’d like it based on the premise, but somehow all the crazy tonal shifts worked for me in the execution (pun sadly intended). Starting and ending with the Beatles and Bowie songs is the big clue that the story should be viewed through a contemporary lens, not as a historically-accurate depiction of the era. Waititi does something similar to what Tarantino did with Inglourious Basterds. But while Tarantino gives his audience a wish-fulfillment fantasy ending, Waititi goes the opposite way and starts in surrealism and fantasy and ends up with reality. Roman Griffin Davis is fantastic as Jojo. His performance made me think of Christian Bale’s in Empire of the Sun, only with the added difficulty of having to pull off the comedy as well as the drama. I especially appreciated that Thomasin McKenzie’s Elsa character was multi-faceted, not a just a waif-in-the-attic and that Scarlett Johansson’s Rosie is also not the stereotypical saintly mother role.