STACK #185 Mar 2020

FILM FEATURE

With a freshly minted Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay,TaikaWaititi has even more reason to thank his mother for introducing him to the novel that inspired his hit comedy, Jojo Rabbit . Words Gill Pringle

her attic – even if her 10-year-old Hitler youth son Jojo initially disapproves. “Scarlett is actually like that; she’s a mother and she’s a funny goofball, you learn when you hang out with her. But she’s also fiercely protective, and that’s really what I was looking for in that role. When I became a parent myself, I realised how hard it is. And trying to raise a child alone, it’s hard enough let alone a war, when you are trying to salvage whatever you can from your child who is being brainwashed and pulled away from you. And so you use whatever tools you can in this situation." Part Wes Anderson, part

Rabbit as “a bit of a love letter to mothers,” especially solo mothers. “I have a single mum and I didn’t realise until I had my own children that she would have done anything for me – and she did,” he adds. “That’s why the mother is the most important element in the film for me – and probably the only grounded character in the movie, too. She’s a clown and just trying to save her kid,” he says of Scarlett Johansson’s charming Rosie Betzler, a single mother who hides a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in

aika Waititi credits his mum with introducing him to Christine Leunen’s novel Caging Skies (on which Jojo Rabbit is loosely based), even if her interpretation was slightly skewed. “My mum read Caging Skies and was explaining the concept to me, saying how it was about a boy in Hitler Youth and his mother is hiding this girl in the attic. The way she described it sounded so cool and I thought it was a great film idea,” he explains. “But when I read the book, it wasn’t exactly how my mum

described it,” he adds with a laugh. “So I started writing it myself, more like how my mum had explained the book – and then the imaginary friend character came into the story and a lot more of the humour and essentially the core of that story about a young boy who is indoctrinated and has to learn to understand. The idea was kind of like having a monster in the attic, but who is just human.” Waititi describes Jojo

Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis

Springtime for Hitler, Waititi’s dazzling takedown of fascist thinking never fails to amuse, using biting satire to convey serious issues with surprising warmth. Indoctrinated into the Nazi youth movement, Jojo (newcomer Roman Griffin Davis) doesn’t initially share the same worldview as his mother. Taught to hate Jews and think of them as monsters, he struggles because of his small size

14

MARCH 2020

jbhifi.com.au