JOJO RABBIT AND THE BRASILIAN CONGRESS INVASION
CINEMATOGRAPHIC ART HELPS US TO UNDERSTAND WHAT EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY CAN CAUSE IN SOCIETY
Jojo Rabbit is a 2020 film, genre Comedy / Drama / War directed by Taika Waititi that portrays a lonely German boy who discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in the attic. Aided only by his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must face his blind nationalism as World War II rages on. A satire on World War II and alienation.
At the beginning of the film we see that Jojo is a lonely boy, his father is absent. He finds his idol and best friend in the figure of Hitler. We must see that Jojo is the representation of the feeling of abandonment, loneliness, emptiness and immaturity that can accompany people throughout their lives, even after adulthood. Jojo wants more than anything to be valued, to be part of a group, to be part of something bigger.
To fill the void of people looking for a hero, that hero needs an archenemy, or several. The more the enemy is horrible, the bigger the hero becomes. Thus absurd ideas about Jews were spread. Not only about Jews, but also about communists, homosexuals, etc. I think that to become almost a god, the number of enemies of the Fuhrer boiled down to everyone who wasn’t Aryans. What I personally find funny is that Hitler himself wasn’t blond with light eyes, and nobody said anything about it, hypocrisy is very strong in the club of the immature, since it takes maturity to face our imperfections and others.
The character Fraulein Rahm played by Rebel Wilson, she is the instructor of the League of German Girls at the Hitler Youth Camp. Little is known about her childhood, however she claims her sister had an incestuous relationship with her uncle. She also claims that this was caused by a Jew hypnotizing her. She also claims that she had 11 children for the war. She spends most of her time telling ridiculous stories that she believes are true.
After Hitler’s suicide, all countries approached Germany, causing everyone to fight back. Fraulein Rahm strapped a grenade to a boy and told him to go hug an American soldier and gave another boy a gun and told him to shoot anyone who didn’t look like them. When she saw Jojo, she gave him a jacket to show he was on the German side and not get shot (which in this case would turn out to be exactly the opposite, as the Germans were getting shot more). Fraulein Rahm then grabbed a weapon and ran towards the enemy. Suddenly, an explosion occurred that presumably killed Fraulein Rahm.
This character helps us understand how ladies who we believed to be wise for their age end up demonstrating a complete lack of self-control and beliefs based only on what they heard. How fragile the human being’s mentality is, and how art can show us this in the least painful way possible.
The central point of the film is in the process of knowledge that reality brings to Jojo when he has contact with a Jewish girl, he discovers that she is so human and so interesting that he ends up falling in love with her. How much prejudice prevents us from living and falling in love with people and things we judged before knowing is an incalculable loss.
One thing very well portrayed in the book is that totalitarian regimes don’t like people to read and have different ideas of what they say is right. And let’s be honest, people who aren’t curious are too lazy to figure things out for themselves, they’re afraid to decide and make mistakes. So if someone comes and says: I’m going to decide for you, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know, your life will be comfortable and happy.
No wonder they accept it right away, immaturity goes hand in hand with self-indulgence, because growing up and maturing are painful and uncomfortable processes. But there are scientists, philosophers and artists; people who naturally want to know the truth, even if it’s painful. It’s something like an instinct, we die for it if need be. Society should be very grateful for these few rebels, who are not fooled by anything or anyone.
Walking towards the end of the film Jojo finds his mother hanged for betraying the Nazi party, at that moment Jojo becomes truly alone, an orphan. The contrast between the feeling of loneliness and actual loneliness is evident when he starts rummaging through the garbage looking for food. Emotional maturity helps us to contemplate our emptiness, observe its dimension and not be scared by it, we are beings full of emptiness, which are filled momentarily by the things in life. Only maturity teaches us what we can change and what we should just learn to deal with in the best possible way. Jojo was a lonely boy who missed his father, but he had a mother he didn’t know how to take advantage of because he was too entertained with an imaginary friend, the Fuhrer. When we put someone on a pedestal, they can’t walk on our floor.
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
REINER RILKE
Written by Laressa de Alkmim Oliveira
