Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

2022, d. Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson - Netflix

I've never been too interested in the story of Pinocchio, but it's very clear that many a filmmaker (most of generations before me) are particularly compelled by it.  The cautionary tale of a naive, lying, troublesome boy, full of self-indulgence and oblivious to the consequences of his actions always just grated on me (I was a good boy), and the Disney animated interpretation always seemed heavy-handed in its intentions of getting obedient, well-behaved children

Guillermo Del Toro's new, gorgeous, stop-motion interpretation leans quite specifically into Del Toro's interests in the darker aspects of fantasy, and moreso the darker aspects of life. The film opens with a  father and son, the bond they have, the love they share, as Gepetto educates his boy Carlo on the world as he knows it, but the spectre of World War I, though nearing its end, looms ominously as planes fly overhead, wowing the young boy.  Carlo is killed in an accidental bombing, and Gepetto is absolutely destroyed. Years pass, and Gepetto is a bitter drunk, and in a fit of drunken sorrow, he chops down the tree Carlos planted and hastily fashions a new puppet who is enchanted while he is passed out.

What comes to life is a nightmare of pine and nails, and his initial reveal is presented in the language of horror cinema, but it quickly steps out of it into an entirely different horror, a naive innocent who is curious about everything but is too much of a hurricane to actually learn anything.  He stumbles into town, wandering into church where the religous think him a demon, but the local arm of facist rule is particularly intrigued.  Pinocchio is rejected by his papa, a burden, and as such he flees into the world and has to learn on his own, without parental guidance.

The backdrop of fascism of Musillini's Italy, becomes foreground and the threat of conscripting Pinocchio into a youth regimen is eventually fulfilled a fate he doesn't really understand the implications of. 

Amidst the ample fancifulness, such as Pinocchio's various trips to the afterlife and a particularly gnarly re-envisioning of the whale, there's a heaviness and severity to Del Toro's Pinocchio, full of abusive adult figures, a brutal regime, and war.  The biggest message of the film is not Pinocchio's usual "fall in line, obey your parents" but rather "know when it's right to break the rules" for children, and for adults "accept your children for who they are". It also posits that abusive parents love their children deep down, but doubles down on it being a parents actions, demonstrations of love, that matter most.

The stop-motion animation is outstanding, beautifully and richly detailed, but animated so finely (as Del Toro says, "if you animate the ordinary, you will achieve something extraordinary") with innovative puppets that it truly looks like nothing else. We're pretty steeped in miniatures in our household and to contemplate the vast amount of minis required to create such a natural world is mind boggling (as much as I liked the movie, the 35-minute making-of featurette was even more fascinating to me).

The cast is pretty solid, but very anglicized (but all writing is in Italian, and the towns and landscapes are steeped in the aesthetics of Italy), when I wonder if a more Italian-oriented voice cast would have met the visual authenticity more appropriately.  That said, I loved Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett (doing primarily monkey sounds).  There are songs in the film from Alexander Desplat which don't strive for "musical!" feel, but something much more organic to the production bleeding out of, then back into the score.  They're not bangers, but they feel integral.

It's still Pinocchio, but it's not the same old Pinocchio.  I like it more than any other interpretation of Pinocchio before it, by far.  It's perhaps the last Pinocchio we need, and probably the best.  It's also one of Del Toro's finest productions.