Jo Jo'S Fantasy World: Constructing A Bright Wartime Childhood

It is hard for today's people to imagine the dark era when Hitler was in power. And we try to imagine that there is a ten year old boy who grew up under Nazi Germany's control. What would he think of the now notorious head of state at that time? When he found out that his mother secretly sheltered a Jewish girl in his dark cupboard, how should he deal with it? This is the two major questions raised and answered by Jo Jo's fantasy world. From the perspective of the protagonist Jo Jo, the film constructed a bright childhood in wartime, explaining how the education of love breaks through extreme racism and makes innocent children distinguish right from wrong in war.

In the past ninety-second Oscar awards, Jo Jo's fantasy world received six nominations and eventually won the award for best adapted screenplay. Director Taika Waititi is also one of the screenwriters. As a descendant of Maori and Jews, he played the comic clown Hitler in person, and made the most sarcastic and ridicule for the famous anti Semitism in history.

At first, Hitler was a friend of Jo Jo's imagination. He encouraged Jo Jo to join the Nazi youth training class. Under his instigation and inducement, Jo Jo summoned up courage to be a cunning and strong rabbit. Jo Jo ran to pick up a grenade but wounded himself. He had to withdraw from the collective, when the story of the film was officially launched.

Jo Jo, a Jewish girl hiding in a dark room, was overwhelmed by the Nazi brainwashing education. In his mind, Hitler was timid and nagging. By contrast, the living girl could easily press him down with strength. In the confrontation with Elsa, Jo Jo's inherent cognition of Jews was shaken, and he began to wonder about the feeling of "love".

"Love is the most powerful thing in the world." Jo Jo mother Rosie said to his son. The mother who participated in the rebellion was by no means a monotonous preacher. She would play a distant father when Jo Jo was depressed, take his son's hand and dance happily at home. When Jo Jo refused to look at the corpse hanging from the gallows, he would straighten his little head to let him see the distance between the dead and the living. With this role, Scarlett Johansson won the nomination of Oscar's best supporting actress. Under her interpretation, this heroic mother convincingly conveys the belief in the love of life and the coming of justice.

The butterfly in his belly reminds Jo Jo that he can feel what love is, and the shoelaces that he can't tie up tells the audience that he is still a child who needs no care and cares. The metaphorical symbols used in Jo Jo's fantasy world fit the age and identity of the protagonist. The children's perspective adopted by the film has, to some extent, neglected the conservatism and limitations of the film.

There is no heavy historical burden and no grey and dull war background. As the Chinese translation of the movie is directly pointed out, the story takes place in an unrealistic, fairy tale hypothetical space-time. Food may be scarce, but Jo Jo can live in an open room, go for a walk, ride a bike with her mother, or even go to the street to put up political posters. The cruelty of the war was only so far. The dead bodies of the rebels hanging from the city square were limited to danger and uneasiness. There was a direct and direct war scene near the end of the film, but in the slow motion scenes, the young soldiers excited to rush forward were delayed, and Jo Jo's amazed look was highlighted. The struggle on the eve of the victory was daunting.

Most of the films are in the daytime or in plenty of light. Only when the lens went deep into the wall hole of Elsa, we felt a bit of depression and darkness. On the night when Jo Jo lost his mother, he and Elsa were lying on the windowsill together, remembering their parents who were nowhere to be found, looking at the continuous fire in the dark. Jo Jo is undoubtedly lucky. In addition to Hitler, who is constantly jumping out of trouble in his subconscious mind, the adults he meets knows how to defend their childlike innocence. The sufferings of Auschwitz, the cruelty of struggle, the relentless and numbness of bullets, and the truth about war are unapproachable and realized by Jo Jo in his imaginary world.

Of course, the child's world can be protected and wrapped in sweet sugar paper. But the final question is, what can audiences get from the fictional space of Jo Jo's fantasy world? The world is going through a more complicated era. The voices of racial split and the voice of advocating peace and integration are intermingled. The movie is an important mass medium to express its position and arouse collective consciousness, and the production of Hollywood has brought a wider influence to Jo Jo's fantasy world.

?