taika waititi – Cinema Perspective

Since breaking through with cult indie hits such as Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, eccentric Kiwi filmmaker Taika Waititi has spent some time in the mainstream working with Disney on big budget Marvel and Star Wars pieces. His latest feature sees him return to his smaller scale roots, adapting the sports documentary of the same name. Co-written with Inbetweeners’ Iain Morris, comedy drama Next Goal Wins follows disgraced and downtrodden football coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) in his efforts to lead the notoriously awful American Samoa national team to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. With the help of his assistant Tavita (Oscar Kightley) and their star player Jaiyah (Kaimana), he tries to turn their misfortunes around.

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New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi has garnered cult status and critical acclaim with his distinctive style of madcap comedy. The controversial premise of his latest feature Jojo Rabbit has caused quite the stir as the Jewish auteur tackles the topic of Nazism. Based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, the WWII story sees German boy Johannes (Roman Griffin Davis) enrol in a Hitler Youth training camp run by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and his team of instructors. Meanwhile, Johannes’s mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is harbouring Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their house, presenting a moral dilemma for the young protagonist which he ponders with Adolf (Taika Waititi), his dictatorial imaginary friend.

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