Pinocchio
Directed by Guillermo del Toro & Mark Gustafson
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Patrick McHale
Story by Guillermo del Toro & Matthew Robbins
Based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, Lisa Henson, Gary Ungar, Alex Bulkley, Corey Campodonico
Starring
Ewan McGregor
David Bradley
Gregory Mann
Burn Gorman
Ron Perlman
John Turturro
Finn Wolfhard
Cate Blanchett
Tim Blake Nelson
Christoph Waltz
Tilda Swinton
Cinematography Frank Passingham
Edited by Ken Schretzmann & Holly Klein
Music by Alexandre Desplat[1]
Production companies Netflix Animation, Double Dare You!, ShadowMachine, The Jim Henson Company[2]
Distributed by Netflix
For anyone whose only exposure to Pinocchio is the Disney classic, Guillermo del Toro’s take on it is going to be jarring. Gone is the jaunty alpine outfit with the bowtie and the feathered cap. In fact this puppet wears no clothes at all, nor needs to. No bright blue eyes—indeed, just two holes drilled in the head with shallow circles around them to suggest eyes. Aside from a long conical nose, the puppet is nearly featureless: a rough-hewn torso, stick arms and legs, clearly made from pine and not finished.
A tuft of splintered wood on the top of the head suggests hair. Perhaps his most notable feature is a knothole where his heart would be. Sounds more like Plank from Ed, Edd and Eddy, doesn’t it?
But this is just where the magic begins.
The setting and other characters are much darker: Geppetto the carpenter had a son, Carlo, whom he loved very much. Carlo was killed in the waning days of World War I when Austrian planes returning from a mission decide to lose ballast and just drop their remaining bombs randomly. Geppetto crawls into a bottle and spends the next twenty years slowly dying. One night, in a fit of drunken rage, he cuts down the tree marking Carlo’s grave and drags it home to make a new boy. The tree had a resident, a cricket named Sebastian J. Cricket. He was living in the knot hole that would end up the spot where Pinnocchio’s heart would be. A sprite (named Sprite) turns up and animates the boy, promising Sebastian fame if he will act as the wooden manikin’s mentor.
This takes place in fascist Italy on the eve of World War II. Oh, and Pinocchio dies in this version. At least four times that I noticed, probably more. Each time he ends up in a unique outer realm where four black rabbits place an endless game of poker whilst guarding Sprite’s sister, Death. It’s a good vehicle for advancing the plot. Sprite has made a Little Mermaid type covenant: Pinocchio is immortal as long as he is just a self-animated puppet. If he becomes a real boy, he becomes mortal. But only Death can make him mortal.
Since Carlo Collodi wrote “The Adventures of Pinocchio” back in the 1880s, there have been at least two dozen movies, many books, and dozens of plays based on Collodi’s character. Del Toro wanted dark; fascist Italy, a village devastated by war, people with evil designs, and characters both worn and incomplete.
The result is an incredibly engaging and beautiful feature. Del Toro spent 15 years making this stop-action feature, and it is a marvel. I recommend after watching this movie to watch the half-hour featurette on Netflix, “The Making of Pinocchio.” I usually avoid such, since they’re usually vapid and self-congratulatory, but in this instance, you really want to know how this magic was done, and you’ll come away with a deep appreciation for this masterpiece.
And masterpiece it is. Some of Del Toro’s finest work, a true labor of love. The best stop-action animation I’ve ever seen. Beautiful character design, incredibly detailed and realistic settings, and truly inspired voice acting.
It has many magical moments that you’ll remember for a long, long time. My own favorite is when Pinocchio is in the church in front of the crucifix his father has failed to finish, and he asks the hostile villagers why they hate him but adore the wooden figure behind him.
A glance down the list of the voice actors will reveal some familiar names (except Pinocchio, where they used an actual boy, Gregory Mann as the puppet’s voice). One that set me back on my heels was the voice of Spazzatura, Count Volpe’s disreputable and mistreated monkey. This foul and malign beast was voiced by Cate Blanchett, and she did a marvelous job. Tom Kenny has several roles, most notably that of Benito Mussolini, whose characterization here reminds me strongly of Lord Farkwad from Shrek. Pinocchio gives a command performance for Il Duce. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.
This is the second absolutely stellar remake of a much beloved classic I’ve seen this week (Cyrano was the other one) and both are destined to become absolute classics in their own right. (NB: Both films have original scores and songs that work to advance the plot and are excellent in their own right.)
Now on Netflix.