Before tonight's Academy Awards, I want to jump in with a little celebration of "Jojo Rabbit" (2019).
It is nominated in six categories, including best picture. Unlike a few years ago, when I had long-shotty but sincere hopes that the most deserving (and my favorite) film in that category would win--and those hopes were dramatically borne out--I have very little hope indeed that that will happen this time around.
Admittedly, I haven't seen every movie in the Best Picture category for 2019, and there are some I have reason to suspect are really excellent films. However, of those I have seen, you already know how I feel about one of them, and that I found the other unrelentingly grim. Based on how other recent awards have panned out, I'm bracing myself for these two to very unfortunately clean up at tonight's Oscars. Hollywood doesn't seem able to resist a film celebrating Hollywood, no matter how deathly dull and/or problematic it is. And they also may not be able to differentiate between a, granted, strong performance that nevertheless takes place in an honestly pretty awful movie.
If I'm right that one or both of these two films fares well tonight, then some truly wonderful films will have been robbed. "Jojo Rabbit" is one of them.
This is the last movie Husband and I saw in theaters before our child was born. We were admittedly both a bit emotionally vulnerable, with the birth of our child imminent, pausing just for the moment in the borderland between here, the before, and there, where life will never be the same. Being in that emotional space primed us to be receptive to this movie in ways we couldn't have anticipated, but I'm grateful for that, because "Jojo Rabbit" is a remarkable, brave, and beautiful movie.
The best synopsis I have for the film is that it's like a Wes Anderson movie, but braver. This is said, of course, as someone who generally loves Wes Anderson movies. But part of what makes Wes Anderson movies so charming is that their preciousness--the obsessed-over, lovingly and thoughtfully crafted auteurship that has come to be emblematic of Anderson's work--creates a safe space. Even as his films at times turn toward moments of sincere and painful emotion, they contain just enough elements of sweet fantasy to transport a viewer from the imperfect ugliness of the real world.
"Jojo Rabbit" shares some of these elements: it is beautifully and intricately set-designed and costumed, and the characters are silly and just heightened enough such that they are an utter delight to watch, but they still ring true and deeply human. This is no small feat, because for Christsakes, this is a movie about Nazi-era Germany, and the eponymous Jojo is a child in the Hitler Youth who worships the führer to the point that Hitler is his imaginary friend. How in God's name could anyone make that funny?
Yet director Taika Waititi delivers with brilliance. It helps that he himself plays the imaginary version of Hitler, portraying him with a dandy absurdity that mocks the genocidal dictator in a manner that is deeply satisfying. Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, and Archie Yates each further add moments of wonderful levity to the film.
Yes, Waititi somehow found a way to make this bleak, horrifying chapter in human history funny... but only for a time. Because there then comes the point at which the realization finally dawns that we are watching a film about World War II set in Germany, and that there is no way this deeply thoughtful and powerful film isn't ultimately going to turn to face that head-on. When it does, it hits with the devastation of an emotional freight train. One small, not terribly spoiler-y example of this: In his final scene as Hitler, Waititi delivers a hysterical rant exploding with unhinged rage--a sobering reminder that we can mock and deride dangerous leaders and their dangerous movements all we want, but they are still deeply, devastatingly lethal in their dangerousness and must be dealt with accordingly.
As the film approaches to its conclusion, it draws you to think about those who survived that period. It asserts that humanity can endure even the most unspeakable horrors and still assert itself, unfailingly, as it re-emerges on the other side; that the truest and most lasting truth about humankind is not the suffering we inflict on each other, but our resilience in surviving that suffering. Thinking about the world my child will inherit and fearing all the ugliness this world has to offer, it was bracingly and unexpectedly hope-instilling to be reminded of the strength and grace humanity has within it as, over and over again, it stubbornly and beautifully survives.
Surely a movie capable of all of this--of reclaiming one of the darkest periods of human history and transforming it into something that both makes us laugh and connects us to the inherent strength of humanity--deserves to win Best Picture?
{Heart}
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