Acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro has created his best canvas to date, drawing on the best practices from his own blockbuster films in the animated movie “Pinocchio.”
Netflix’s Pinocchio has already won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Animated and a 95th Academy Awards nomination in the same category. Pinocchio has every chance to win.
It is particularly interesting for Ukraine that Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” depicts war as the greatest evil. The cartoon was masterfully made, the director put all his skill and even his characters from other films into it, and also did not make “Pinocchio” without the influence of anime. It turned out today – the last work of the master.
This animated film is a full-fledged author’s creation by Guillermo del Torro, based on the cult tale “The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1891) by Carlo Collodi – for example, “The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1936) by the Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoy on the theme of the work. But unlike “Pinocchio”, del Toro’s “Pinocchio” is made in a much more adult movie, “now you know how it really is” style.
“Pinocchio” by Guillermo del Toro: the nuances of the application form
I have to say right away that I was not impressed by the trailer: Pinocchio is a carelessly made doll from raw wood, without clothes, even on paper. The painting seemed to me to have the atmosphere of a puppet cartoon, which I hated (as opposed to drawn ones) as a kid.
I was wrong: the “roughness” in Pinocchio’s embroidery is just a trick. The wooden boy is deliberately haphazard to emphasize that he is a puppet so that the other characters appear more “real” even though they are puppetry as well. The same Pope Pinocchio – the old Gepetto – has a very expressive face. There is also enough computer animation in the cartoon: the sea, the sky, the city.
Overall, the movie has a very distinct sense of presence. The picture will feature a live episode where Pinocchio follows the pope to the Catholic Church during mass. The church, the priests, the parishioners are extremely realistic. The wooden “monster”, which made a loud noise on the ground, seriously frightened the townspeople: “Demon!” Geppetto barely managed to silence the scandal.
There’s war and ghosts in the courtyard
Pinocchio’s place is Italy. Time – 1943. Fascist Italy is waging war in alliance with the Nazis. The video shows the personal tragedy of Geppetto – he lost his son Carlo. As a result of the bombing: a bullet hit the temple where Geppetto finished the crucifixion of Jesus from wood. The master managed to leave the church, but his son hesitated. Out of grief and desperation, the old man goes into an orgy and then cuts down a pine tree to cut himself a baby from the log. Meanwhile, floating lights, some “spirits of the forest,” are added to the Blue Fairy, a masked multi-armed woman with wings behind a pile of eyes.
The fairy, pitying the old man, revived the baby. Not only del Toro here, but even Hayao Miyazaki is already thriving. The afterlife that Pinocchio will go to after his first death (he will regularly go there as if he were going home) is led by the Blue Fairy – Death’s sister, reminiscent of a winged sphinx with big eyes (both sisters were voiced by the inimitable Tilda Swinton).
This situation is reminiscent of the world of Spirited Away (2002), where otherworldly spirits are ruled by the evil sorcerer Yubaba and his kind twin Zeniba.
Outwardly, both Fairies in Pinocchio resemble creatures from del Toro’s fantastic films Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Hellboy 2 (2008). The director generously shared his characters with Collodi, but left most of the Italian stories unchanged, only the events take place in new historical conditions.
The military line of the tape is now strikingly relevant: mobilization, a fast-paced military training camp, the conversations of soldiers before their deportation to a possible front: “Are you afraid of death?” Unexpectedly, it turned out to be similar to the realities of the German movie directed by Edward Berger.
Only Remarque’s novices lacked a wooden, optimistic tomboy enough to shake off their tacky fears. Pinocchio here is somewhat similar to “Schweik,” an anti-war, satirical propaganda, including the scene from Yaroslav Hasek’s circus tent director Volpe.
Pinocchio’s mission: to teach people about humanity
The circus is another line of the movie. Before getting there, Pinocchio will sign a demonic contract, where instead of a signature he will draw a “sun” like an illiterate.
Pinocchio is a ray of light in this extremely bleak world. Unlike Collodi, the protagonist of “The Adventures of Pinocchio” does not strive to be a real boy. And it is also equipped with a mission to protect humanity in absolutely inhumane conditions: in a military camp, in a public circus that Mussolini himself would visit.
Del Toro said of his character, “My Pinocchio is much less a puppet than the people around him because he personifies disobedience. I wanted to make a naughty Pinocchio and show disobedience as a good quality. I wanted everyone else to change except him.” Cricket learns from Pinocchio and Pinocchio learns little from cricket. In a way, I contradicted the work.”
So Pinocchio changes the unjust world. Guillermo Del Toro went as far as he could in this regard. At the very beginning of the cartoon – in the church where Geppetto works, Pinocchio looks at the figure of Jesus and asks his father: “He is as wooden as I am, but why does everyone love him and they are afraid of me?” “Because people don’t know you yet. They will know and love you,” his father reassured him.
And for his absolute humanity, Pinocchio will be crucified: they will try to arrange an auto-da-fé for him.
I would like to say that, despite the adult meanings that Del Toro puts into his film, the children watch the picture with less pleasure and often laugh. For example, when Pinocchio was newly awakened and began to examine the surrounding reality, he took a hammer and asked his father: “What is this?” “Hitting something is one thing,” Geppetto replied. “Excellent,” Pinocchio was delighted and began breaking empty wine bottles.
Source: Focus
Mary Moore is an accomplished author and journalist known for her engaging and informative writing on trending topics. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a keen interest in current events and a talent for finding the human angle in stories, Mary’s writing is always engaging, insightful and informative.