Welcome to our Reference Degustation where we take you through a four course menu of Taika Waititi tastetations. Third course: Jojo Rabbit. Take a walk in someone else’s shoes and await correspondence from your unemployed letter fiance.

Stats

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Director: Taika Waititi
Writer: Christine Leunens (based upon the book ‘Caging Skies’ by), Taika Waititi (screenplay by)
Released: September 2019
Budget: $14,000,000
Worldwide Gross: $90,335,025
Actors: Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson

Thank you to our patrons for contributing to the themes throughout our Taika Waititi Reference Degustation.

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Themes

Directing: It was a conscious decision to depict Germany as vibrant, thiriving and innovative in fashion. Hinting there would be levity and not walking on glass for 2 hours. Oti offers the imagery of shoes was to further sell the later emotional scene between Jojo and his mother.

Tone
Quirky/eccentric tone: Yes.
Comedy as a way of dealing with harsh realities: They had comedic dialogue but that wasn’t helping Jojo get through the quandries he was trying to get through.

Story
Belonging: The thread of belonging was certainly Jojo’s journey.

Characters
Childlike Wonder (Precocious kids, The lovable fool): Neither.
Father son dynamic: We muse about the imaginary Hilter scenes were proxy to the absence of his father? Oti doesn’t necessarily think so.
He makes a cameo: Yes.
Real people as fantasy figures: Yes.

Breakdown and Analysis

  • There were a lot of things that were so whimsy that it got in the way of emotion. Like Thor: Ragnarok where we get to real moment of emotion and backs off.
  • Jojo was an interesting character. Balancing regurgitating what he was told and whether he truly believed it. As Oti would say, naive.
  • We don’t need a love angle. Especially for 10 year olds. It induces cringe and gross. Let’s normalise not having romantic feelings and forming familial ties with strangers. Why not go with the natural proxy for his sister that was already laid out in the film.
  • As much as there was a cotton candy veneer, Jojo and Yorkie were facing harsh realities.
  • Near the end of the film was one of the most digusting things KT saw in a PG film. Jojo was old enough to acknowledge there are people that puppet the strings of hatred. So he was old enough to know when he is deliberately hurting someone. To keep her there, meaning she is stuck in hiding and fearing for the rest of her life. It is greed to the base level. He wilfully told her she wasn’t safe because of his selfish needs. Had this been him not wanting to face the world alone, that would have been super compelling.
  • Jojo has faux (pho) character development. It felt super cheap. Undeserved of what it was trying to say. To go to the lengths of satirising Hitler, we needed a worthy payoff for Jojo’s character. If Jojo’s learning isn’t everything and he learned nothing, than what is it?
  • We were able to build so much emotion and build on themes on Babe so there is no mercy for Jojo Rabbit in not delivering.
  • Oti claims it is the Green Book reimagining.
  • Make the ending worth it.
  • Wes Anderson had a baby with Taika Waititi and made this movie, according to Oti.

Unrelated but vital points

  • Cinephile Oti is well and truly in the building.
  • In the ancient texts of Oti, the missing scrolls that are not part of the FYR cirriculum.
  • Oti wants all child roles being played by 40 year olds so he can hold them to account.
  • Welcome to the final boss in the final stage, Oti and his ho takes!

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