Helden

Recent incidents in Canada - such as the one I was describing yesterday, for example - have made me perhaps a little perverse about Remembrance Day.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm a family researcher, so I'm more than aware of war's impact on families, with no rosy, gauzy perceptions of it.

War kills people. It tears families apart. It wounds psyches. It cripples bodies.

So, I headed off on Remembrance Day afternoon, with the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter in tow, to see JoJo Rabbit. It was on my want-to-see list, and all I knew about it was that it's about a small boy living somewhere in Nazi Germany, who has an invisible friend - Adolf Hitler.

Not the real Adolf Hitler, obviously. This trailer actually gives you a fairly good idea of the movie -- except it gets darker, of course.

Young JoJo is ten, so eligible for the junior division of the Hitler Youth, the Deutsches Jungvolk. Unable to remember a Germany without Hitler, JoJo's room is plastered with posters, the common sight of bodies strung up in the town square elicits a small boy's "yuck", and he thinks the summer of 1944 will be the best one ever.

As he charges off with his mates to "Komm, gib mir deine Hand" (the Beatles' original recording, which I have on CD and digitally), I understood just how surreal and frantic this film was going to be. I'm usually fatally put off by anachronisms, however in the current political climate - and climate crisis - this seems perfectly appropriate to a satiric nightmare, which is hilarious and terrifying by turns. It is, after all, a strange and diabolical time, seen entirely from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old boy, who has no idea of what his protective mother is really up to.

As events wheel into early 1945, things get bleak pretty fast.

Younger daughter was a bit traumatized by how JoJo Rabbit comes by his nickname, but delighted by the closing song - David Bowie's German rendition of "Heroes". (Yes, that works too.)

The impressive cast includes Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Rebel Wilson, and Stephen Merchant, playing the role he was born to play. The two young leads are marvellous.

And the dream-pal Hitler? Played by the Maori/Jewish screenwriter Taika Waititi, as a middle finger flipped in the direction of those crazy Nazis - who, undoubtedly won't take the hint.