Something full-bodied, the promise on the posters of "Jojo Rabbit" may sound like an "anti-hate satire". But what does the Jewish Maori director Taika Waititi have come up with for his "Third Reich" fable between his Marvel outings (after "Thor: Day of Decision" he will also stage the fourth "Thor" movie), could go smoothly as a program for much of the Toronto Film Festival. The North American productions, whose premieres are at the center of the largest festival on the continent, combine tears, forgiveness and the fight against hatred.
"Jojo Rabbit" (German theatrical release: January 23, 2020) looks with childish perspective on the end of the Second World War in Germany. His protagonist Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is ten, overzealous member of the Hitler Youth and has no less an imaginary friend than Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself). Slapstick deposits alternate with dramatic entanglements: The tight-knit boy finds out that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) hides a Jewish girl in her house.
Not coincidentally, "Jojo Rabbit" awakens bitter-sweet memories of the Holocaust fairytale "Life is beautiful" by Roberto Benigni, which became a surprise hit over twenty years ago. Waititi is undoubtedly the bolder and more self-willed director. The balancing act of his film is all the more delicate because he has made it his intention to sympathetically show the Nazi child, even to stage him as an antihero, without letting Fascism appear satisfiable.
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Tom Hanks in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"
The "anti-hatred" program declined, however, to the extent that almost all Nazis are sweet, whimsical or lovable - lost people who believed only the wrong. However, that came to pass: on Sunday, "Jojo Rabbit" won the Audience Award - currently the best indicator of the Oscar potential of a film.
The big, maybe too much urge for reconciliation, which is expressed in "Jojo Rabbit", also runs through one of the most anticipated films from the US: "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" (theatrical release: February 13, 2020) by Marielle Heller , Tom Hanks portrays TV star Fred Rogers, who hosted a popular children's program in the US, with a genial ambiguity that hides even more niceness.
Heller's attention, however, is even more to the professional cynic, whose look really gets us to know Rogers. Matthew Rhys personifies Lloyd Vogel, a jaded, overworked and half-depressed journalist who is supposed to write a portrait about Rogers, eventually finding himself. The whole thing is inspired by "Esquire" reporter Tom Junod and his Rogers portrait "Can you say ... hero?".
The Surprise of Heller's Adaptation: The Director of "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" manages to play with the predictability of the story and to create a nice tension between the skepticism of one man and the joie de vivre of the other. In small steps, slow changes in the atmosphere, the looks and gestures, the two men find understanding and openness, without any of them being exposed. Last but not least, the chic, romantic retro look of "A Beautiful Day ..." is a sign of an earlier, supposedly simpler America, which is again longed for.
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Toronto Film Festival: The HighlightsOn the other hand, the family drama "Waves" by Trey Edward Shults ("It Comes at Night") looks decidedly hip. Which fits well with the fact that he is responsible of the equally hip production company A24, which has released as a rental hits such as "Moonlight" and "The Florida Project". Stylistically, "Waves" is one of the more conspicuous, sophisticated works in Toronto, mainly because of its work with alienating colors and lights that sometimes outshine everything else.
Schult builds the descent of an Afro-American showpiece family as a remembrance, which at first appears detailed and comical, later increasingly melodramatic and metaphorical. Anchor point is a crime and the question of forgiveness for the offender. The fact that many tears are flowing is just as much a part of the program as on "A Beautiful Day ...". An intrepid emotionalisation, which can even be found in the big action car "Ford v Ferrari" (German title: "Le Mans 66", start: 14th of November) with Matt Damon and Christian Bale. A film that not only celebrates classic testosterone, fighting spirit and friendship with men, but also wistfully recalls the good old days of American pioneering spirit.
The Toronto Film Festival does not want anything more than diversity and change of perspective. For the past two years, public presentations have been made of the indigenous peoples on whose land the festival takes place. In 2019, the number of films by indigenous filmmakers was also counted for the first time, an impressive 13 titles. In terms of directors' involvement, Toronto is at the forefront of a movement that seeks to enhance the representation of female filmmaking - with 36 percent female directing on average across all feature films, 50 percent of gala premieres, and 54 percent of Discovery titles.
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Jennifer Lopez (left) and Constance Wu in "Hustler's"
However, it is not always the films that write narratives from a female perspective that actually score points. The Jennifer Lopez vehicle "Hustlers" by Lorene Scafaria stages a story of the rise and fall of two strippers, with the intention of narrating female self-determination, but not giving too much away to a prideful Protestant morality.
The clou is the true case of the film, in which strippers robbed Wall Street bankers. In "Hustler's", for a brief moment it seems like the solution at all: to take money from sleazy men, but not to provide them with sexual satisfaction. But the film is not that consistent. He does not shake the foundations of patriarchy, structural discrimination and capitalism. That's a bit less, no matter if Jennifer Lopez is on her way to the Oscar or not.
At the same time the debut "Black Conflux" by Canadian Nicole Dorsey takes on an exciting and daring quality . She tells a rape drama in which the rape is missing. In two parallel strands, she shows the life of a young girl who could become a victim, and the everyday life of a lonely, socially and psychologically ailing man, who predestined for the perpetrator role.
How Dorsey brings this together, with what attention and restraint she undermines expectations, is remarkable. Like a silent echo of the anti-hate program of "Jojo Rabbit" understanding and reconciliation are in the foreground here. Toronto shows: There is something moving on the North American continent.
