THEbe moved by Geppetto inconsolable for the death of Charlesher little boy, the spirits of the forest decide that Pinocchio – the puppet carved and assembled in pine wood in a crazy attempt to replicate the sonwith clearly visible nails and a head still rough – go animated. The poor old man can suffer no further, and waking up on the floor among empty wine bottles.
The meeting between the two is not fairytale though, Geppetto doesn’t know what to do with that evil thingdoes not make him a suit out of paper, nor spend two lire on the spelling-book: she gives him Carlo’s history book insteadand only after the country kicks them both out of the church. Sebastian, the Jiminy Cricket (originally voiced by Ewan McGregor and more like a cockroach) however witnesses everything, just like in the story of Collodi. But he ended up in the old man’s house not to seek refugebecause his no longer exists: it has been uprooted and transformed into the puppet.
Pinocchio, a wooden Frankeinstein
Not even twenty minutes inside the Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro (on Netflix and titled just like the version of), and the film has already mixed the melodrama of Raphael Matarazzofolklore, neorealism, Christology, Frankensteinthe slapstick, Marcellino bread and wine, the landscaping care of Roberto Innocenti’s illustrations. And the musical, unfortunately, because without the songs (music by Alexandre Desplat) it would have been a completely radical work, less obsequious than a certain preconceived idea of cheerful animation.
However, every trait has been eliminated Disney-Tyrolean puppet (derived from the drawings by Gris Grimly) of the fairy and the donkeys, of the toys but not of Wick (now the son of a fascist hierarch who sees Pinocchio as the perfect soldier: he never dies, have it) Del Toro creates a dark action fairy tale, suspended between horror and grace. And realistic atmospheres. Full of amazing choreographies as well as silences.
Geppetto and Pinocchio. (Netflix)
In the fascist army or star of Count Volpe
But in this still poor and, precisely, fascist Italy (at a certain point Pinocchio performs for the Duce, making fun of him), the problems at the heart of the story I am filial identity and a reluctant father. Geppetto would like to hug his son again and he complains that this animated piece of wood – which he didn’t even ask to become alive – is not Carlo. It is a substitute that promises to become good and then gets fooled by the Count Fox (a Fire Eater resembling Donald Sutherland).
A freak of nature claimed by the army and by the contractual obligations of the performer. «A burden», Geppetto repeats it several times; and as such, Pinocchio, who has Sebastian the cricket explain the meaning of the worddecides to become the star of Volpe’s Caravanserai; he will send some of the money to dad. There will be time to find an agreement, a second meeting, an elsewhere in which to mend. After both have made progress.
“Pinocchio”. (Netflix)
And Pinocchio learns, on stage and listening to the Wood Spirit (zoo-anthropomorphic creature and voice of Tilda Swinton), which sends it back every time it dies. Invested in the street and even jumping in the air clinging to a mine, after having managed to escape together with Geppetto from the shark. He also ends up in a fascist fort where healthy youth train for war. Not for punishment, but because it is a duty.
Pinocchio action hero but anti-Marvel
Del Toro therefore subverts a lot – Pinocchio goes from a silly do-nothing to a different one to be exploited – but it does honor to the nineteenth-century “adventures” of the puppet, it does not allow breaks, merges the episodes and basically shoots a programmatic classic. Without the stink of retro chic patina: stop-motion, almost an axiom since Pinocchio’s joints rub together (and how to render it in the best way if not with “jerky movements”?), goes beyond the rendition of live action so fashionable in favor of a much more ambiguous and interesting world. What are we looking at? Theater? Animation? Dead souls?
Ambiguity also in the echoes, who knows if only random, a The Neverending Story (the Spirits recall the pair of statue-guardians from Wolfgang Petersen’s film) and also to the Pinocchio seen in Shrek: in the use of lies for a good purposeif not really useful to save life.
Pinocchio and Count Fox. (Netflix)
Who wants to live forever?
But – apart from prodigies and quotations – the real magic act in this project pampered by del Toro for years, is that it looks like a sort of great Pinocchio special content, an elegiac re-foundation of the father-son relationship. Geppetto’s desperation over an unjust death becomes a prayer for life, whatever it is, imperfect, broken, with burned feet. Every scarrafone is nice in papa soja.
Scarrafone that in the heart, in a wood defect, he has a studio apartment for the cricket that acts as his conscience and guardianand that – something never explored before in the versions of the fairy tale – must face the problem of immortality. And all that life entails for a Wooden highlanders with perishable human affectionshandcrafted version of the mecha David by AI – Artificial Intelligence (who, abandoned, set out in search of the Blue Fairy).
But no magic wand comes to help here. Instead the hours creep in, the years that steal and take away everything from us. “What happens happens, and then we are no more.” Fading, tears hard to hold back.
Point blank review to use at dinner
It’s better than Pinocchio influencer released a month ago on Disney+. But del Toro’s great craftsmanship fails to beat Toyland’s version of Robert Zemeckis, a sick place like Luna Park freak from Leave me alone by Michael Jackson: one of the best scenes of 2022.
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