Summary
Jojo complains that if his father were home, he would understand his point of view. Rosie goes into the other room and dresses up like Jojo's father, smearing ashes on her face to look like a beard. Once in her costume, Rosie scolds Jojo and tells him to be more respectful towards his mother. She then pretends to have a conversation with herself as Jojo's two parents. As Jojo's father, Rosie tells Jojo that he is out "making a difference in the world" and he needs him to be good to Rosie.
Then, pretending to be both mother and father, Rosie does a dance to some jazz music and encourages Jojo to join her. They dance and hug one another. In the attic, Elsa looks at Jojo's dagger.
The next day, Jojo visits Elsa in her room and asks her to draw a picture of where the evil Jewish people live, "and where the queen Jew lays the eggs." Elsa refuses to tell Jojo about her family, but tells her that she is engaged to a boy named Nathan who is fighting in the resistance. She shows Jojo a picture of Nathan in the locket around her neck and tells him that Nathan proposed on the banks of a river, reciting a Rilke poem. "He's coming to rescue me and then we'll live in Paris," Elsa says.
"I'm way too busy for a girlfriend," Jojo says, but Elsa insists that one day he will fall in love. She hands him a picture she drew of him, a grotesque caricature. "I told you to draw where the Jews live, this is just a stupid picture of my head!" Jojo protests, as Elsa says, "Yeah, that's where we live."
The next day, at a Nazi library, Jojo finds a book of Rilke poetry. He copies out some of the poetry, as imaginary Hitler eggs him on. When he returns home, he tells Elsa that he found an old letter for Elsa from Nathan. He reads it to her. In the letter, "Nathan" breaks up with Elsa, has found a new lover, was never in the resistance, and is now fat. Elsa runs into her attic compartment to cry. Seeing that he has hurt Elsa's feelings, Jojo fabricates another letter that nullifies the first one and suggests that Nathan does not want to break up.
Jojo and Elsa take turns naming famous luminaries in their respective religions/ethnicities. Jojo is especially upset to learn that Houdini is Jewish. Jojo leaves in a huff. Later, while he's walking with his mother, Rosie tells him that romance is important and that he will understand one day. Jojo contends that metal is actually the strongest thing in the world, not love, and is "followed closely by dynamite, and muscles." Rosie tells Jojo that he shouldn't be obsessed with war, but should be celebrating life and dancing. They ride bikes home.
Jojo visits Elsa, who tells him that Jews used to live in caves and were united by their appreciation of art. Jojo contests that rabbis use the foreskin of circumcised penises as earplugs, but Elsa ignores him. She tells him that some of the Jews moved out of the caves, after developing magical powers, but some stayed in the caves in animal bodies. She lies that horns grow in when a Jew turns 21, that Jews hang from the ceiling when they sleep, that they can read minds, and are attracted to shiny things.
When Jojo returns to his room, Hitler confronts him about his friendship with Elsa. He tells him not to let Elsa influence his thoughts. Meanwhile, Rosie and Elsa talk in the attic, as Rosie drinks wine. She tells Elsa that a big part of being a woman is being able to trust without fear, and Elsa is unsure of how to do that.
The next day at school, Jojo asks Klezendorf if someone would get a medal if they turned in a Jew. Klezendorf says they should be more worried about the imminent invasion of the Allies, and they look at a map. Jojo tells him he's writing an exposé on Jews, called Yoohoo Jew. Klezendorf laughs at him and suggests that he has a big imagination, telling him that at his age, he had an imaginary friend named Conny who wet his bed when he was asleep. He then sends Jojo out in a robot costume to ask for metal for Hitler. While he is out, he spots his mother leaving "Free Germany" signs around the city.
Analysis
While Jojo's project with Elsa is framed as a Nazi research project, the two of them begin to form an unlikely friendship in the course of his interviews. When he asks her about how Jewish people live, creating a grotesque and fantastical image of them as a demonic people, Elsa redirects him towards asking her more questions about herself, and it is through this questioning that he learns about Elsa's fiancé, Nathan. What begins as a campaign to try and dehumanize Jewish people even further becomes a budding friendship and a conversion for Jojo, as he begins to see the Jewish girl in his attic as more of a human being.
In the process of their acquaintance, Elsa begins to teach Jojo a profound lesson about the nature of hatred and bigotry. When he asks her to draw "where the Jews live" for his research, she draws a picture of his head. As she hands the drawing to him at the end of the scene, he is confused and annoyed, saying, "This is just a stupid picture of my head!" to which Elsa replies, "Yeah, that's where we live." With this, she suggests to him that his stereotyped and suspicious perception of Jews as a people is completely a figment of his own perception and imagination, an arbitrary category that has nothing to do with the lives of actual people.
As Jojo begins to see Elsa as a human being, he also develops a bit of a crush on her. After hearing about her fiancé, Nathan, Jojo writes a fake letter from Nathan breaking up with Elsa. In this, we see that Jojo has developed something of an investment in Elsa. While he is following through on torturing her by pretending that something bad has happened to her beloved, it also seems to be motivated by his interest in her. This gets revealed in his tension with the imaginary Hitler, after Jojo realizes he has actually hurt Elsa's feelings. While Hitler holds firm in his conviction that Elsa is a "monster," Jojo is apparently becoming less sure of that.
The film continues to careen between lighthearted and ridiculous satire and more disturbing and serious subject matter. One minute, Jojo is arguing with Hitler or trying to impress his buffoonish, closeted superiors at school, and the next we see Elsa and Rosie discussing the nature of womanhood in the small attic crawlspace. Taika Waititi shifts between these tones quickly, always keeping the viewer on their toes.
Just as Jojo's bond with Elsa deepens, so does his bond with his mother, Rosie. We see them walking along the river, and Rosie urges her young and self-serious son to rejoice in the pleasures of life, to dance and have a good time, rather than constantly focusing on the war and the bleak side of things. She teaches him to dance and the two of them go on a playful bike ride down a beautiful tree-lined street. Try though he might to be serious, ruthless, and soldierly, Jojo is his mother's child, and allows her to introduce him to gentler and more tender ways of moving through the world.
