Let everything happen to you…

I just really liked the above quote from the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke it was used as an epigraph at the end of the Taika Waititi film Jo Jo Rabbit, a movie I loved. It is from the poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing. I have to confess that while I was aware of Rilke, I had not read his poetry, something I will remedy. I just used Canva to make up a quick quote graphic. Canva is a graphic design tool I should use more often, just got to find the time to play around.

I won’t bore everyone with my thoughts on JoJo Rabbit, except to say, see the movie. There are laughs but also tears, it is an intelligent film, designed to make you think. I sincerely hope it wins Best picture, I suspect it won’t, politics may get in the way, and it has certainly divided critics. Personally, it is my favourite film from 2019. I hugely admire Taika Waititi, his creativity, intelligence, empathy and irreverence. This film well deserves its Oscar nominations. Taika’s irreverent humour detracts nothing from the tragedy of the holocaust and NAZI youth and if you feel uncomfortable watching in parts, then good, it is an uncomfortable piece of history, at least the past and in some ways, our present are being dealt with in a fresh and thought-provoking way. Empathy is what the film is about, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. And the soundtrack is awesome, I love the use of Beatles and David Bowie tracks, especially the German version of Bowie’s Heroes. Heroes, who we choose and why is something we should think about.

Have you seen Jo Jo Rabbit? What did you think? How did you feel about an anti war film that features Hitler as the imaginary friend of a young boy?

Go to the limits of your longing Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.