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| ARTS

T

aika Waititi can’t stop talk-
ing about his pants. It is two
days after the world pre-
miere of Waititi’s “anti-hate sat-
ire”Jojo Rabbitat the Toronto In-
ternational Film Festival, and the
New Zealand filmmaker is under-
going the obligatory ritual of
meeting, greeting and dismissing
journalists inside a well-appoint-
ed downtown hotel suite. But be-
fore any interview takes place, he
needs to adjust his trousers. Im-
mediately.
“One pant leg is longer than
the other, isn’t it?” he asks, just as
I enter the room. Or maybe his
question is directed to the two
public-relations representatives
sitting nearby. Or maybe no one
at all. I suggest that perhaps the
sartorial dilemma rests with the
way his pants are sitting on his
hips. He shoots a cocked-eyebrow
glare which indicates that I have
said either the weirdest or the stu-
pidest thing to ever be uttered
about such a piece of clothing.
Whatever the case, the pant-leg
shtick acts as a tidy introduction
to the many sides of Taika Waititi:
style icon, jester, self-knowing ec-
centric.
But even the most carefully tai-
lored pair of pants won’t help
Waititi escape the fall movie sea-
son without personal discomfort.
Such is the case when you write
and direct a comedy such asJojo
Rabbit, which follows a young
Second World War-era German
boy and his imaginary friend,

who just happens to be Adolf Hit-

ler. Doubly so when you decide to

play the Fuhrer himself, as Waititi

does here.

And whileJojo Rabbitended up

leaving TIFF as a potential Oscars

contender, winning over a swath

of critics and the festival’s coveted

People’s Choice Award, its theat-

rical release this weekend should

ignite the hot-take discourse cycle

all over again.

Here, the increasingly busy

Waititi, who’s about to start

shooting the soccer comedyNext

Goal Winsbefore heading back to

the Marvel Cinematic Universe

withThor: Love and Thunder, talks

with me about expectations, his-

tory and what is and isn’t satire.

Hownervouswereyouinbringing

JojotoTIFFforitsworldpremiere?

It’sasubjectthatnoteveryoneis

obviouslycomfortablewith...

Without sounding arrogant, I

don’t get nervous any more. And

I’m starting to get worried about

that. What makes me feel good

about what I’m working on is

when I start getting nervous and

anxious of how it’ll be taken. But

this is my sixth film, and I feel

now that I know my sensibilities,

my tone. And I know how much

work I’ve put into it. I’ve worked

on this film since 2011, and for me,

it didn’t feel like I was taking a

massive risk by presenting this

story. This is by no means the first

satire or the first film to lambaste

Hitler and the Nazis. It would be

different if this was from the oth-

er point of view, of me trying to

say, “You guys, let’s take into con-

sideration what was going on

with the Nazis, okay?” If I was do-

ing that, yeah, I’d be nervous. But

this is me continuing the conver-

sation that’s been going on since

1930.

You’reconfidentinyoursensibil-

ities,butareyouconfidentinthe

audiences’awarenessofthose

sensibilities?Asin,everyone

knowswhattoexpectfromaTaika

Waititifilmnow?

No, but that’s not my job. I used to

be a painter, and what drove me

away from that was this ridicu-

lous concept of people having to

read a five-page dissertation on

what a painting is about without

just letting an audience see a

painting and judge it, and let the

art speak for itself. That’s what I

hope my films do. I don’t want to

tell an audience beforehand that

this is what you can expect. That

sounds apologetic. For me, you’ve

either seen my films and under-

stand that they’re all the same,

tone-wise – and that they deal

with the same things, which is

family and love and that they

have an uplifting side to them and

messages of hope – or you

haven’t. In which case: Buy the

box set.

Youspentyour20sinBerlin.How

doyouthinkthisfilmwouldbe

received[there]today?

If anyone knows how to acknowl-

edge what’s happened, it’s the

Germans. They have put a lot of

effort in continuing the conversa-

tion. Every child is reminded and

educated on what happened,

probably to the point where a lot

of kids grow up having this guilt

or shame for something that hap-

pened 80 years ago. But it’s vital

that they learn, and that’s what

this film is about: continuing to

educate people, and ensuring it

never happens again.

Soyou’resatirizingormaking

Hitlerabuffoonhere,whichisnota

newidea,it’sbeendonesincethe

forties.Whydoyouthinkaudi-

encesneedanewinterpretationof

that?

It’s not enough to say Hitler was

an idiot or a buffoon, because I

don’t think that’s as effective as

showing him as a buffoon. That’s

why we have caricature. And even

though he’s dead, if you can show

that face and show that ridiculous

outfit and moustache, it’s the

same effect as showing how ridic-

ulous [Donald] Trump is. It’s not

enough to say, “I don’t like this

particular person or his ideas.”

The way comedy works is, to sati-

rize, you have to show them or a

version of them. And with, in this

movie, with Jojo not having a fa-

ther and him trying to find a fa-

ther figure and mixing him with

his idol, Hitler, that felt like a new

and inventive way of telling a sto-

ry. So we have it from that kid’s

point of view. Without an imagi-

nary Hitler, it wouldn’t be quite

the same.

Themarketingforthisfilmisthat

it’san“anti-hatesatire.”ButI’m

curiouswhereyouseetheline

betweencomedyandsatire.What

doyoufeelyou’resatirizinghere?

I think there’s a long tradition of

satirizing anything – the estab-

lishment, we’ll call it – and come-

dy has been the biggest tool for

that. The only real way to attack

ideas and attack regimes is when

you’re making of fun of people,

mimicking them or satirizing

them. For some reason, that’s the

thing that drives people the cra-

ziest: being made fun of. That’s

why Trump gets so out of control

and spends all day on Twitter re-

sponding to people who troll him.

His confidence is that messed up

that he feels that instead of run-

ning the country, he has to re-

spond to people who make fun of

him on social media.

ButI’mwondering,inmyideaof

satire,there’sanaspectofpointing

thefingerbackattheaudience.Of

directlyimplyingthattheyshould

wakeupabit.Doyouseethat

here?

I think you get the idea that it’s

our responsibility to ... I keep say-

ing this, but to continue the con-

versation. It’s our responsibility

to educate not only ourselves but

also new generations. There’s a

kind of laziness that opens the

doors to breed these hate crimes

and atrocities and eventually

wars. It wigs me out that, recently,

they did a poll and something like

44 per cent of American millen-

nials didn’t know what Auschwitz

was. That is not good enough.

You’retalkingaboutshowingthe

Nazisasfoolsandhorriblepeople,

butIwanttoaskaboutSamRock-

well’scharacter–aNaziwhoturns

outtobesomethingofagood

person.Wereyouconcernedabout

showingbothsides...

“Some very fine people on both

sides”? Yeah, no, but there were.

There were career soldiers who

fought for Germany who weren’t

Nazis. They were patriots and

should’ve known better than to

be supporting that regime, but as

we know from the stories like the

Valkyrie Operation that there

were people who knew what he

was doing were wrong and were

trying to get rid of him. There

were Germans helping Jews es-

cape. I don’t think that in any

country in the world, 100 per cent

of the people are evil, as we know.

So I think that Sam’s character

does have that complexity.

Thisinterviewhasbeencondensed

andedited.

JojoRabbitopensOct.25inToronto

beforeexpandingtootherCanadian

citiesNov.1.

ContinuingtheconversationwithTaikaWaititi

JojoRabbitdirector

discussesHitlerthe

buffoon,hisideaof

satireandwhetheror

nottherewere‘veryfine

peopleonbothsides’

BARRYHERTZ

FilmmakerTaikaWaititi–seenattheEuropeanpremiereofJojoRabbitinLondonearlierthismonth–wrote,

directedandco-starsinthefilm.HeplaysayoungSecondWorldWar-eraGermanboy’simaginaryfriend

–whojusthappenstobeAdolfHitler.SIMONDAWSON/REUTERS