{"id":2449966,"date":"2019-10-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=314386"},"modified":"2019-10-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T06:00:00","slug":"jojo-rabbit-a-hidden-life-and-nazis-at-the-movies-in-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jojo-rabbit-a-hidden-life-and-nazis-at-the-movies-in-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jojo Rabbit,\u2019 \u2018A Hidden Life\u2019 and Nazis at the movies in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Jojo Rabbit”<\/strong>
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The new films \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d<\/a> and \u201cA Hidden Life\u201d<\/a> both begin with newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler\u2019s rise to power \u2014 the familiar images of military parades, frothy crowds and furious speeches.<\/p>\n

Taika Waititi\u2019s \u201cJojo Rabbit,\u201d which arrives in theaters Oct. 18, sets the montage to a German version of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Wanna Hold Your Hand,\u201d lampooning Hitler\u2019s rise and diminishing it to the level of Beatlemania\u2019s empty-headed fanboys and girls. Terrence Malick\u2019s \u201cA Hidden Life,\u201d due for release Dec. 13, plays the historical footage somberly to establish a historical and political context for the earnest true story to follow.<\/p>\n

These wildly divergent films about allegiance, conscience and domestic life in Hitler\u2019s Europe will make for an instructive double feature one day, when future generations try to make sense of how the world was reacting to fascism\u2019s reemergence in 2019 in Europe and the Americas. I came close to such a double-bill last month at Aspen Filmfest, where I saw the crowd-pleasing comedy \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d and the mournful capital \u201cC\u201d cinema \u201cA Hidden Life\u201d within 48 hours of one another.<\/p>\n

In aesthetics and style, Waititi and Malick are in different universes. The similarities would seem to end with those opening visuals. But their aims are the same. Both films are challenging the 2019 viewer to think about the choices they\u2019re making right now, how they are (or are not) standing up for what they believe in, what they\u2019re basing those beliefs on, and what they\u2019re willing to sacrifice for their convictions.<\/p>\n

The first act of \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d is straight-up Nazi slapstick. We meet Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year-old Hitler Youth, and his goofy imaginary friend Hitler (Waititi himself) before Jojo sets out from Berlin for a sort of Nazi summer camp, where he is supposed to learn to kill Jews under the buffoonish leadership of Nazi camp counselors played by Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson.<\/p>\n

The film keeps the laughs going to the end, but it\u2019s hard to imagine anyone will sincerely argue it doesn\u2019t take its subject seriously. We soon learn Jojo\u2019s mother (Scarlett Johansson) is quietly supporting the resistance. We\u2019re forced to consider the cost of such a choice for parents, forced to consider how to talk to kids about hate, and we can\u2019t help but think about the impressionable Jojo-like young people being radicalized online today with real-world consequences.<\/p>\n

Waititi has been calling the film, which won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, an \u201canti-hate satire.\u201d Screenings have been preceded by a short filmed statement by Waititi about his intent, which repeats the phrase. Normally, I\u2019d argue that any piece of art that requires explanation before you see it is a failure of expression \u2014 the work should speak for itself. But in this case, and maybe because of this moment in history, I actually found it useful.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to be arguing about \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d until Oscar night and I think it\u2019s fair that Waititi say his piece in screenings nationwide before Twitter goes ablaze with offended knee-jerk reactions. Twitter will remain a fiery hell, I\u2019m sure, but Waititi has started an alternative, elevated conversation that I hope viewers continue.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not a new conversation. There is a long history of laughing at Nazism, of course, from \u201cThe Great Dictator\u201d to \u201cThe Producers\u201d to \u201cJojo.\u201d (Ferne Pearlstein made the great documentary \u201cThe Last Laugh\u201d<\/a> about Nazi jokes shortly before the 2016 election.) Satire and triggering humor are a time-honored tool in fighting hate in our time. They\u2019re just not the only tool.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Hidden Life,\u201d Malick\u2019s first historical film, is based on the life of the Austrian conscientious objector Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl). Working a farm in the Alps and raising a trio of daughters with his wife, Franziska (Valerie Pachner), the devout Catholic Jagerstatter refuses to serve Hitler\u2019s cause. Even when non-combat options are offered, he refuses because he would still have to swear an oath of loyalty to the Nazis. He goes to prison to face the guillotine, leaving Franziska to keep the farm going alone and raise the girls.<\/p>\n

A priest tells him early on, \u201cYour sacrifice would benefit no one,\u201d and the sentiment is repeated at every turn \u2014 by family members, by Nazi officers, by his lawyer. Nobody is watching. Nobody is following him. History will not change. And yet, he stands firm.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s silent for long stretches of the film and doesn\u2019t precisely articulate how his faith is motivating his protest \u2014 the film is narrated with the Jagerstatters\u2019 own historical words from prison letters the couple traded \u2014 making him a mostly blank canvas onto which the viewer must project their own moral questions. \u201cA Hidden Life\u201d artfully nudges each of us to think about how we are or aren\u2019t standing up for our principles today. It puts us in Jagerstatter\u2019s shoes and asks us to consider not only what we might have done then, but what we\u2019re doing now.<\/p>\n

Neither \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d nor \u201cA Hidden Life\u201d is a masterpiece. Malick repeats, to diminishing returns, many of his affecting visual and emotional moves from his handful of established masterpieces, \u201cDays of Heaven,\u201d \u201cBadlands\u201d and \u201cThe Tree of Life.\u201d Waititi seems to be working toward something greater that will make use of his indeed masterful gifts of comic timing and visual gags displayed in \u201cJojo,\u201d in \u201cHunt for the Wilderpeople\u201d and in \u201cThor: Ragnarok\u201d \u2014 he\u2019s on his way to making something truly transcendent with his bag of tricks.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, both films speak, sadly and urgently, to where we are in 2019 and both films challenge us to do better.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Jojo Rabbit” The new films \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d and \u201cA Hidden Life\u201d both begin with newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler\u2019s rise to power \u2014 the familiar images of military parades, frothy crowds and furious speeches. Taika Waititi\u2019s \u201cJojo Rabbit,\u201d which arrives in theaters Oct. 18, sets the montage to a German version of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2449966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 13:56:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}