Thoughts on this film?
JoJo Rabbit
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
- Start date
A wonderfully done satire. When my wife and I watched it last week, we were a little put off by it at the beginning. My wife has a really hard time sitting down to watch a movie, so I have gotten used to watching it in parts. We watched the first half an hour and took us a few days to get back with it. She admitted to me that she wasn't sure she could finish it. But, Friday night, we sat down, started it back up again, and soon enough, she was hooked. We try to watch all of the Best Picture nominees every year and this was my second favorite behind 1917. The kid playing Jojo was really good. As were Rockwell and Johannsen. I actually think she was better here than Laura Dern in Marriage Story.
And no, I don't think its one you need to see in the theater. (1917 on the other hand. Yes. Definitely. Go see it in the theater. I bet it will lose something if seeing it at home.)
And no, I don't think its one you need to see in the theater. (1917 on the other hand. Yes. Definitely. Go see it in the theater. I bet it will lose something if seeing it at home.)
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Totally fair! People respond to films differently. I don't feel I missed anything with watching Jojo from the comfort of my own couch. I felt the laughs, story and pure emotion were all there. 1917, I believe is a rather immersive film, much like Gravity, which I felt lost quite a bit when I tried watching it at home. But of course (as I should have put in my first post), your mileage may vary.
When I'm watching my 65" 4K UHD TV, the image appears larger than what I'm used to at the theater. Add to that my Dolby 5.1 surround system .... I'm not giving up anything except sheer volume, which I feel most theaters these days are just TOO DAMN loud. I've watched many a movie at home, not missing anything in my opinion...
I found it mediocre: neither particularly funny nor dramatic. That second-act plot turn/low point should have fundamentally changed the course of the story, but it's almost forgotten about.
Also, setting the story in 1945 was a cheap move, as it ensures that things won't be too bad for too long.
I don't mind Waititi not adapting all that, but the result is a mushy, timid, and forgettable flick. It's a middle-school-ready Holocaust movie that's just serious enough to not be (fairly) accused of sanitizing history, but also lighthearted enough to not disturb even sensitive kids. Grade: C+
Also, setting the story in 1945 was a cheap move, as it ensures that things won't be too bad for too long.
In the book (link), this authorial decision is justified because Jojo keeps Elsa virtually imprisoned for four years after the war ends.
^ The death of FDR is a story that, obviously, can only be told in '45. This story, however, doesn't make much sense in '45, as most German Jews were interned in concentration camps starting in the late '30s, with the death camps largely being built in '41-2. So, not only does it stretch severely credulity that even a kid wouldn't have noticed Elsa living upstairs for several years, but the story would have been more powerful had it been set earlier, because any educated member of the audience would know the stakes would be far higher, as the end of the war was still years away. Instead, all the movie shows is a few pleasant months of warm weather and sunshine, with no hint of so much as one winter.
ETA: I guess the idea is that Elsa was previously holed up somewhere else, and only moved in with Jojo and his mother shortly before the movie starts. Regardless, the story and drama itself are, as I noted above, weak sauce.
ETA: I guess the idea is that Elsa was previously holed up somewhere else, and only moved in with Jojo and his mother shortly before the movie starts. Regardless, the story and drama itself are, as I noted above, weak sauce.
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I got the impression (I only saw it once) that Elsa moved in when JoJo was recovering from his injuries
I will say this.. Taika's sense of humor doesn't match with mine. But I didn't have to laugh to appreciate that what is supposed to funny was also written in a film that wasn't all laughs.. it takes a storyteller of some talent to even try to mix tones and pull it off.
I think the ending.. was so great in it's simplicity.
I think the ending.. was so great in it's simplicity.
Yes I'm pretty sure it was implied that she'd been moved around various locations? Could be wrong.
I enjoyed it greatly, but I think as satire it isn't perfect, melding horror and hilarity is an exceptionally tricky thing to do and I don't think it quite manages it. It's funny and it's horrific but it's rarely funny and horrific (if that makes sense). For that I'd suggest something more like Death of Stalin.
It's not a satire at all. It's a gentle comedic deconstruction of Nazi race ideology at most, which isn't satire. But, Disney was petrified that a movie about a young German kid with a positive view of Hitler would attract charges of antisemitism, so they came up with "an anti-hate satire" as a marketing gimmick to stress how the Disney Corporation totally isn't promoting Nazism, you guys, even though one would have to be a moron to come to that conclusion in the first place. Also, calling it a satire gives it the veneer of sophistication, as if the flick were any deeper than a made-for-network-TV movie from the 90s. Nope.
I don't quite understand the harshness to the film.. and that's coming form someone (me) who was not interested is seeing it, and fifteen minutes in, I still was not warming up to it. It's a movie, and it's not meant to actually reflect events accurately.. it's a story that is being told. And humans tell stories to reflect their emotions and feelings, and that means that "historical accuracy" doesn't have to play a part. I loved, for example, how at the end we see a jeep going by with an american flag. Technically, even when the allies won, Americans didn't go that far into Germany and that kind of thing probably didn't happen.. but it was the director's way of using simple visuals and emotions (contrasted with the swastikas shown throughout the film) to allow the audience to quickly understand the contrast. We've been embellishing our own tales as humans since we started telling them around the campfire.
