we could be heroes

... if just for one day.

That anthem by David Bowie always vibrates my heartstrings.
Tonight, it was very difficult to not sob while listening to its words and watching
two children silently dancing.
Heart-breaking.
I held back my tears, not wanting to overly alarm the physicist.
The bfe and I were at the Lucas, finally having a second chance at a missed film.
The place was packed.
Apparently, film professors at SCAD had encouraged their students to attend.
Too bad the young people had not boned up on history beforehand.
They didn't understand that the ten-year-old boy had been getting lessons on
Hitler-worship since his kindergarten days.
They didn't understand that the boy's imaginary "best friend" represented the
image of the Fuhrer that the boy was able to compile, given his young age and
limited experiences with the world.
The students in the audience tonight didn't understand.
The members of their family who might have been part of World War II - their
great-grandparents, if any - have most likely died, taking their stories of The
Great War to the great beyond with them.
Hopefully, class discussions will include history lessons.

Two scenes in "Jojo Rabbit" had a tremendous impact on me.
The first scene that caught my heart was more than halfway through the story.
The title character is finally having an opportunity to simply behave as a boy
his age should - by following a blue butterfly flitting along the paving stones
toward a plaza in town.
When the child pauses, he looks up... to see his mother's shoes dangling, at
eye level, on her lifeless legs.
She has been hung for daring to hope for a Germany freed of its dictator.
Heart-breaking.

The second scene that tore at my heart is the one described in the beginning of
this post, of the children dancing.
That was actually the last scene in the film.
The boy was Jojo; the girl was a Jewish friend of his deceased teen sister.
The boy's mom had been hiding the girl in their attic.
As the children swayed to music in their heads, all I could think of was the
mother's words of advice to her son:
"We have to dance to let God know we are grateful to be alive."

Wow.
Thank you, Taika Waititi, for this amazing and poignant film.
Thank you for making the little boy true to his time.
Thank you for the reminder that merely existing is not enough.

We have to dance
to let God know
we are grateful to be alive.

i thank You, God.