Jojo Rabbit: contexts and key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
Jojo Rabbit: contexts and key sequences
Jojo Rabbit
What you need to know
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019): ten-year-old Jojo, a keen member of the Hitler Youth whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler, discovers that his mother Rosie is hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa, in their house in the last months of the Second World War.
Taika Waititi's adaptation of Christine Leunens's novel Caging Skies, a satire and black comedy about Nazi Germany.
The mixed responses to a comic portrayal of Hitler, and the film's message against hatred.
Key sequences to know in detail: the opening and the Hitler Youth camp, and the Gestapo search of the house.
Cinematography and mise-en-scène: a bright, saturated palette, symmetrical framing, stylish costume, and the town built as a picture-book Germany.
Editing and sound: archive footage cut to a German version of a Beatles song, editing that controls the comedy, and Michael Giacchino's score.
The few short lines of dialogue that matter most in these sequences, a few words each.
Short answers of the kind the first parts of the Section A question ask for: naming and describing a setting, character or moment, and explaining a choice.
How to answer each part: the marks, and what the short identify and explain parts need as well as the extended answer, since naming a technique instead of a specific example from the film loses marks there. Practice questions to try, each headed 'Practice question' with its marks.
Quote only short lines of dialogue you're sure of, a few words at a time, and base every point on what happens in the finished film.
