In Defense of "Jojo Rabbit"

Please welcome guest contributor Rita Maricone-Dorsch...

Last night, I sat down to revisit Jojo Rabbit, this time with my son, who is equal parts World War II aficionado, Marvel fanboy, and already-pretty-woke tween. Taika Watiti's self-labeled 'anti-hate satire' seemed custom made for his sensibilities. But why do you like this movie so much, he asked me. 

I've been wrestling with this question since the film's release, and since my own impression of it differed so drastically from most reviews, including the positive takes. I didn't see a too-tame provocation that poked easy fun at Nazis. I didn't see a project intended to humanize bigoted white men. I'm not sure it's even best described as an anti-hate satire. To me, Jojo Rabbit was a sweet little allegory about a dangerously underrepresented and urgent subject: the emotional education of boys...

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International Contenders: "Those Who Remained"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

There are many films that have been made about the Holocaust, which to some may feel repetitive but ultimately represents a positive testament to the millions of people who lost their lives and whose fates, while assumed, may still not be entirely known. Invented characters can be useful to convey the experiences of the nameless within an enormous population that did not live to see its own story told. Hungary last won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for the Holocaust movie Son of Saul (2015), and now it could be in the running again for a smaller-scale Holocaust film Those Who Remained, which unexpectedly made the shortlist of ten films that are vying for the five nominations on Monday.

In this quiet, intimate drama, Klára (Abigél Szõke) clings to the hope that her parents may still be alive as she tries to conduct a normal life with her remaining local relative, Olgi (Mari Nagy), in the aftermath of the Holocaust...

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