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Taika Waititi never did get used to looking into mirrors andseeing Adolf Hitlerstaring back at him.
Its a conundrum for the boy: If he turns in Elsa, hes also turning in his mother.
There, he and Elsa begin to engage in a battle of wits.
The film has moments of broad slapstick, surreal visual gags, and silly dialogue.
There are also scenes of corpses hanging in the tidy town square.
You could just see their faces start to drop, like, Oh God, Taikas lost it.
A passerby might think were having a therapy session.
Whyd he take that role?
But, he says, Fox Searchlight insisted.
Jojo Rabbithas already proved divisive among critics.
It just struck me that we were doomed to keep repeating these things, he says.
To be clear:Caging Skiesis in no way, shape, or form a comedy.
Its a densely researched, melancholy historical drama set in Vienna and told through Johanness delusional eyes.
Theres no imaginary Hitler egging him on or high-fiving him.
Each day to get to work, she had to pass by life-size photos of Holocaust victims.
I foundBoyincredibly sad even though its considered a comedy, she says.
Leunens gave him the freedom to do what he wanted with the movie.
Waititi toiled on the screenplay for years, often tossing out entire drafts and starting all over again.
He eventually sent her the script with the message, Its still your baby.
Ive just changed the clothes.
Leunens says she loves the film and still finds it profoundly sad beneath the surface humor.
Watching it, I get chills wondering if my own child could one day be possessed like this.
Well, not all the adults, exactly.
Jojos mother, Rosie, works for the Resistance, though she doesnt dare reveal this to her son.
What did they do?
What they could, the mother replies.
Almost all Taika Waititi films portray someone usually a child slowly realizing their world is built on lies.
(Waititi callsRagnaroka film about imperialism collapsing and describes the Asgardians as a civilization of conquerors.
For a kid, it was like growing up in a circus or a candy store.
So theyd wear their best clothes.
The women would put on all their makeup, put on their stockings.
A different kind of vibrancy could be found in Jojos familys house.
And even the windows look like theyve got suspicious-looking eyes.
It would be silly,however, to claim thatJojo Rabbitis an authentic portrait of life in Nazi Germany.
The characters move and talk like people from todays world.
For McKenzies Elsa, I wanted it to feel like she could have been inHeathers, Waititi notes.
Can you imagine how annoyed youd be?
(I said to draw where Jews live.
This is just a stupid picture of my head.
Thats where we live.)
Of course, he gets a crush on her.
In keeping with the directors style of working, the cast improvised endlessly.
Waititi recalls shooting lots of alternate death scenes for Hitler at the end.
(Spoiler alert: Hitler dies.)
He says he enjoyed making Hitler suffer.
Waititi likes to test lots of different cuts of his pictures.
(Nobody cared about the characters, he says of those cuts.)
Waititi worried: Have we pushed it too far into the absurd?
And is that undermining the profundity of what Im trying to say?
Or has it become too dramatic and now its just not entertaining at all?
They screened different cuts of the film repeatedly first to friends, then to test audiences and focus groups.
The breakthrough came with the opening, a pep talk Hitler gives to Jojo.
Only in reshoots did Waititi decide to add Hitler well, himself as Hitler.
Some thought it didnt go far enough.
Some thought it had gone too far.
Some enjoyed being conflicted.
And some thought it was just right.
(Previous victors includeGreen Book, La La Land, 12 Years a Slave,andThe Kings Speech.)
Do those guys understand weekends?
There was a strong chance I was going to turn that phone off.
So maybe the timing is good, after all.
People would say we learned our lesson after World War II.
Turns out we didnt learn shit.
Jojo Rabbitopens October 18.
