Has Taika Waititi gone mad?

The latest director to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Thor Ragnarock, has now turned to a very special project. Some may even say that it's a project that is very, very risky, as Waititi himself will be playing the Man Who Wanted to Rule the World in his new release Jojo Rabbit.

If you haven't depicted who he will be playing in the image above, he will be playing the role of the famous genocidal maniac, Hitler. (Even typing it seems so wrong) Shown sat around a table with mother (Scarlet Johansson) and son (Thomasin McKenzie) is not the typical depiction we are used to. Taika Waititi says he aims to create a parody, a satirical version of the fuhrer as he is not in fact the real version, but an imaginary friend of the young boy.

The brief synopsis of this film really is the idea of a German family who's mother decides to hide a young Jewish girl at the time of the Holocaust. As a member of the Hitler Youth, serving the regime that is practically hunting those like the young girl his mother hides, he has the trouble of deciding what is right and wrong in the world. During this the boy (who people believe to be Jojo) is joined by his imaginary friend who we expect to be leading him down a certain path. The boy idolises the fuhrer and sees him as not a monster but as a friend, which sadly truly shows how the youth of Nazi Germany felt towards their leader.

Waititi really wants to push that this film is not a love letter, or glorification towards Hitler. As he said himself he wants it to be “anti-f*ckface satire.” On top of this, and this is the bit that makes me stumble towards the film, he wants the film to mainly "piss off" racists, anti-semitists, sexists etc and those newbies who still believe in Nazism, as Waititi says “What better way to insult Hitler than having him portrayed by a Polynesian Jew?” also known as himself. I want to see how he becomes this funny version of the fuhrer. Until a trailer comes out I won't be completely sold on the film, as like others I feel wary of using any images to do with World War II Germany, however if Taika Waititi manages to pull this off it will be a pinnacle part of his career. Or it could do the complete opposite and become the downfall of it.