So JoJo Rabbit and Parasite

I feel that Parasite is brilliant, a "great" film and the first great non-documentary that I had seen in seven months, since Hotel Mumbai. For awhile, the film's farcical nature seems so outlandish as to make the story less than substantial, but then writer-director Bong Joon Ho reconnects it to the movie's raw yet subtle social commentary in a way that proves transcendent. Indeed, the story and shots eventually adopt a poetic and epic quality. Combined with its biting social wit and the way that the filmmaker uses farce to foster poignancy and to illuminate human suffering, Parasite seems reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's great movies. (And, yes, I am aware that Kurosawa was Japanese, whereas Parasite is a Korean film.)

On Monday evening, I viewed Jojo Rabbit for the second time. On my first viewing, I deemed the movie "decent/pretty good," meaning slightly above-average. Once familiarized, I liked it marginally more on the second occasion ("pretty good," meaning above-average, albeit less than a full-fledged "good" film). Still, my essential critique remains the same. Jojo Rabbit is a worthwhile, appreciable, modestly successful movie that, like Parasite, attempts to blend comedic farce with poignant social commentary. But Jojo Rabbit certainly fails to achieve that blend as smoothly and consistently. At times it feels too much like a skit, and the movie's spoof-like nature means that the more humanistic qualities that stem from the relationship between the young, Hitler-idolizing boy and the somewhat older Jewish girl do not quite create an emotional wallop. To be sure, that relationship, its evolution, and what it says about bigotry and demagoguery, then and now, is commendable and valuable. Like Parasite, Jojo Rabbit is an allegory, and this film serves as a historical metaphor that provides useful reminders for our current times (while also providing amusing entertainment and wacky comedy). But the potential for a greater film existed, had the movie tempered its slapstick comedy and opted for greater, more consistent naturalism. I would suggest that only in a few scenes—the dialectic between the would-be Nazi boy and the Jewish girl about the supposed nature of Jews, the long sequence involving the SS search of the home, and the coda with its dancing—does the film blend farce and social commentary in an optimal manner. Unfortunately, these poignant scenes and a few others are interwoven with episodes that are so parodic that they mildly dilute the more sensitive and profound elements, or at least create an uneven flow. To be sure, Jojo Rabbit is a comedy one way or the other, so there is nothing jarring about the tone and construction. Yet by the same token, a slightly smoother, more discerning, more restrained manner could have fostered a greater emotional punch and given the film a more organic quality.

For instance, in the middle of the movie, there are a couple of quiet, sustained, intimate scenes (one with Jojo, the boy, and the Jewish girl, the next with the Jewish girl and Jojo's mother) that build character and relationships while also offering irony and humor. But then the film reverts to sheer farce, with a skit-like bit about "German shepherds" and a joke about rabbis who cut off the ends of penises and use them for earplugs (yes, seriously). Many people in the audience laughed at that one during my second screening, and obviously there is a point to the joke regarding Jewish stereotypes, but it is so parodic and absurd that it does not help the film maintain and develop the more intimate aspects. Overall, most of the jokes prove at least mildly effective, notably the ones about the difficulty of recognizing a Jew (especially if, as one Nazi officer notes, they are not wearing those "funny little hats"). But to maximize its poignant potential, Jojo Rabbit needs a bit more subtlety.  

Visually, the movie is unremarkable overall, but there are a few laudable shots, mainly some outdoor establishing shots, especially ones that capture the glimmering sunlight against swastikas. Likewise, when the SS agents are searching Jojo's home, the first shot of his wall, from within his room, is impressive. It is a closeup of his Nazi paraphernalia—posters of Hitler, swastikas, and the like—and then the camera pans to the left to reveal more, followed by a cut to a longer low-angle shot to reveal more paraphernalia still. The combination is quite effective. So too are the closeups of Jojo's mother's legs and shoes. The second such shot, later in the film, proves rather devastating—the woman sitting next to me during my second screening gasped and held her hand to her mouth for quite awhile thereafter. So writer-director Taika Waititi (who also plays Hitler) proves clever in his visual and narrative staging. That said, Jojo Rabbit certainly lacks the visual grace, depth, and range of Parasite.

One appreciable aspect of Jojo Rabbit is the parallel that it strikes between fascism and more modern idolatry. Of course, the notion that Hitler constituted the first "rock star" is nothing new, but Waititi emphasizes the point strikingly, first by playing a German-language version of The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" during the opening credits sequence (which features black-and-white footage of Hitler's adoring crowds) and later through his mise en scène in the boy's bedroom, with Jojo having plastered his walls with Nazi iconography and Hitler imagery the way that a boy of twenty years later might have strewn Beatles posters above his bed. 

In short, Jojo Rabbit derives from smart, witty, high-quality source material (a novel by Christine Leunens), and Waititi adapts and directs that material effectively yet imperfectly. Scarlett Johannson (Jojo's mother) and Rebel Wilson are both quite adept. Roman Griffin Davis, as Jojo, and Archie Yates, as Jojo's second-best friend (behind only Hitler), Yorki, are cute and effective enough, but during my second viewing, I noticed their natural British accents shining through their German accents on occasion. But as child actors in a spoof, that flaw is excusable enough.

Basically, Jojo Rabbit is worth seeing yet not in the same league as Parasite.