This article is written by the contributor @Galinwey
Be wary of love, wary of reason
In early January, the re-screening of the 4K restored version of "Beautiful Life" after a gap of 23 years sparked a wave of enthusiasm.
This classic World War II movie, which still ranks 9.5 points on Douban, has made everyone flock to the theater to repay the "movie tickets owed that year".
But who would have thought that this movie would become the last movie that fans would see before the epidemic...
The same World War II theme, the same children's perspective, the same "laughter with tears", in the first batch of new films released after the theater resumed work, "Jojo's Whimsical World" is also worth a movie ticket.
Jojo Rabbit hit the crowd at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, winning the Audience Choice Award and subsequently nominating for six Oscars, including Best Picture.
Director Taiga Viditti is a popular comedy director in Hollywood in recent years, after being a visual artist in the art world, he began to dabble in the film industry in 2005, and his first short film "Two Cars and One Night" was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Short Film that year.
In 2017, he was invited to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe and made "Thor 3: Twilight of the Gods", adding his comedic element to the popcorn Marvel series that emphasizes entertainment itself.
This director, whose business prospects seemed bright and bright, after achieving success "within the system", very artistically aimed at the heavy theme of World War II.
Starting from the world of children, combined with visual art with his own comedy techniques, he created an illusion of the German Third Reich, which was bright on the surface and constantly corrupted inside.
The film's story is based on new Zealand writer Kristen Lunans's novel Caging Skies, which tells the story of an avid Nazi teenager growing up.
This dark and brutal story is a profound reflection on World War II and the scars it left on that generation, especially children.
Hollywood adaptations that take audiences and capital into account are clearly much more heartwarming.
The story, set in a Small Czech Town, features ten-year-old Jojo joining the Nazi Youth League as an opportunity to bring out the somewhat jerky Nazi youngster through exquisite costumes and set design.
The loyal little Nazi Jojo received a week of military training in the Boy Scouts.
Here, boys are trained to be men who dare to charge and breathe fresh blood into Nazi fighters, while girls learn how to bandage wounds, make beds, and have children.
Ms. Ram in the group was proud to have brought 18 new Aryan lives to Germany.
Beneath the ridiculous laughs lies the frightening truth of history.
For children who think the world is divided into good and bad people, the most efficient way to get around is to simply and rudely tell them how bad the enemy is and how superior we are.
Thus, in the brainwashing course of the Youth League, the Jews were ugly into terrible monsters with horns on their heads, fish scales, and long tongues, stubborn, stupid and barbaric.
The Aryan race, on the other hand, was 1,000 times more advanced than all other races, and teachers even encouraged children to burn books of "backward civilization" directly.
In this disorderly world, the young Jojo carries a secret that no one knows:
In fact, he was always with "Hitler" and often received teachings and encouragement from idols.
This, of course, is where "whimsy" comes from.
Because his father was in a distant battlefield, Jojo and his mother have always been dependent on each other.
Thankfully, the little Nazi had an attractive mother.
She patiently accompanies her son, teaching him to find humor from stereotypes, to feel love and hope from indifference, and to try to use the power of her love to confront the poisoning of his son by the entire extreme Nazi system.
She would dress up as Jojo's father to amuse him, take him to dance, and tell him "the free ones to dance."
But a mother in a military uniform smeared with soot can't completely replace Jojo's absent-minded father.
Teenagers without their fathers fell in love with the Nazis on the surface because they liked the Nazis' fashionable military uniforms, but in their hearts they may have been more eager for Hitler, a national patriarchal symbol.
So, when he was ridiculed as a "Jojo rabbit" by the officers of the Youth League for not daring to kill rabbits, he was revived by the imaginary Hitler father-like enlightenment.
Hitler is played by director Taiga Viditti himself.
The somewhat naïve and ridiculous image of Hitler in the mind of a ten-year-old is like the one who was vividly satirized in Chaplin's film The Great Dictator.
After the background information is laid, the real story begins.
Jojo, who fantasized about capturing Jews and offering them to Hitler as his personal bodyguard, did find a Jew.
The Jewish girl was hidden by her mother in the walls of their house.
Little Nazi Jojo was horrified and overwhelmed, and his loyalty to the Nazi told him that he should hand over the girl, but if the girl was denounced, he and his mother would also be convicted of harboring.
Helpless, Jojo had to make a deal with the girl, let the girl explain all the situation of the Jews, and help him complete the Jewish encyclopedia "Yo Yo Jews" in order to better understand these enemies.
The plot unfolds later on, which is actually very smooth.
The fanatical Nazi teenager Jojo, who shows his conscience and love in the process of getting along with Jewish girls, eventually parted ways with the whimsical Hitler "father" and is saved.
In fact, in addition to a few main characters, "Jojo's Whimsical World" also has some praiseworthy group portraits.
For example, the funny Captain K in the Junior League.
Captain K's actor, Sam Rockwell, is also a familiar face, having previously contributed wonderful performances in popular films such as "Three Billboards", "Seven Neuroses", and "Iron Man".
In this film, Rockwell not only contracted some of the laughter and the last important emotional points, but also seemed to double-click to play a gay deep cabinet role.
So in fact, the complexity and richness of his personality is greater than that of the protagonist.
Captain K, who debuted, used his pompous speeches and performances to dazzle the little Nazis. Several subsequent hints of a hidden affair between him and Finkel's lieutenant were still messy.
Includes Captain K's elaborately designed sleek and gorgeous uniform (base aesthetic max).
These clues also set the stage for Captain K to help Jojo conceal the motives of jewish girls, after all, in the Nazi position, homosexuals and Jews are not much different.
But the complexity of the character is that he doesn't guard the morals of his heart as firmly as the perfect Jojo mother.
After the final Soviet and American Allied invasion of Berlin, Captain K, as a German, rushed to the Allies in a gorgeous uniform of his own design to make the last resistance, while saving Jojo in a vulgar, self-abandoning way.
Another example is Jojo's good friend Chubby York.
This functional role with a comedic mission adds a lot of spirituality to this film with the imprint of the typical Hollywood assembly line.
Many fans have mentioned the great director Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom".
The picture shapes, color designs, and even compositions of the two films are similar.
Jojo's Whimsical World
Kingdom of the Moonrise
"Moonrise Kingdom" also uses the perspective of a child to tell a fantastic story in a comedic way, and there is also a boy army in it.
However, compared with "Moonrise Kingdom", which is obviously authored in both audiovisual style and narrative structure, Jojo's Whimsical World is more commercial and genre-oriented in terms of both shooting methods and regular narrative logic.
Moreover, if the satire of the Boy Scouts in The Moonrise Kingdom is merely expressed through the absurd-rational dialectic between the children's world and the adult world, the separation of the two worlds;
The satire of the Boy Scouts in Jojo's Whimsical World, then, points clearly to politics, to World War II and the nazi influence on children.
Therefore, from the thematic point of view, this film is indeed more suitable for analogy with "Beautiful Life".
The mother who teaches Jojo and Jewish teenage girls, played by Scarlett Johansson, is like the Jewish father in "A Beautiful Life" who plays games with his children.
Even in that incomparably dark and cruel era, they still carefully guarded the warmest light in their hearts, conveying to the children the powerful energy that love can bring.
That's why, in the end, Jojo's free dance with the maiden is so beautiful.
That's why Rilke's poem at the end is so moving—
Everything will be fulfilled in you
Beautiful
And horror of everything
You just have to move forward
Only until the end of all things
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from Douban and the Internet, if there is infringement, please take the initiative to contact us.