Guillermo del Toro and Pinocchio | The duty to disobey

Another version of Carlo Collodi’s famous tale? Yes. But through the imagination of an exceptional creator like Guillermo del Toro, this Pinocchio in frame-by-frame animation (stop-motion) is unlike any other. And tells the world in its own way by making the wooden puppet a model of disobedience.

For 20 years, the world has had the right to at least three cinematographic adaptations of the tale that Carlo Collodi wrote in 1881. Two of them were very badly received (that of Roberto Benigni in 2002 and that of Robert Zemeckis a few years ago barely months), while Matteo Garrone, more faithful to the original tale, offered in 2019 what is so far considered to be the fairest adaptation.

For fifteen years, Guillermo del Toro has been thinking about his own version of Pinocchiothis time in so-called animation stop-motion, an artisanal technique consisting in making the characters move by filming them frame by frame. Even if he began to study this approach forever, even before Chronoshis first feature film, the Mexican filmmaker is directing his Pinocchio with Mark Gustafson, renowned among other things thanks to the series The PJs.

“10 years ago, I made a vow to focus more on animation,” Guillermo del Toro explained during a virtual press meeting at which The Press has assisted. “First, I must say that animation is cinema in its own right, not just a genre. This art is not specifically for children either. It can address serious, deep and moving themes. »

childhood in times of war

Seeing a little sound Pinocchio as the last part of a trilogy begun with The Devil’s Spine and continued with Pan’s Labyrinthtwo films at the heart of which was the theme of childhood in times of war, the filmmaker transposed the story of Collodi at the beginning of the 20th^e century. The context in which his Pinocchio evolves is first of all that of the Great War, then that of the rise of fascism in Italy with the coming to power of Benito Mussolini.

“I often say that the two essential tales that defined my youth are Pinocchio and Frankenstein, he continues. That probably says a lot about my relationship with my dad, but I loved being thrown into a world I barely understood, trying to make sense of. In my eyes, Pinocchio is one of those rare characters – there are maybe 10 in the history of mankind – capable of being universal and completely adaptable in any context. »

The one who, with his compatriots Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, conquered Hollywood by imposing his own universe believes that an essential fact differentiates his adaptation from Pinocchio of all the others carried out until now: disobedience.

“Being human doesn’t mean having to change yourself or trying to change others,” he says. But to try to understand. »

A grieving man

First made by Geppetto, a man in mourning for his little boy, who died under the bombs, the little wooden puppet who has become a child learns to be loved as he is, rather than trying to meet the standards expected of ” good little boy”. According to the filmmaker, there lies the key to a screenplay written in collaboration with Patrick McHale, recognized mainly for having written screenplays for animated series, in particular Adventure Time and Over the Garden Wall.

“We are used to seeing Pinocchio learn to obey and then allow himself to transform into a boy of flesh and blood. In our version, on the contrary, I wanted everyone around him to be able to learn something from him, and learn to love him as he is, both Geppetto and Sebastian Cricket. We didn’t make a traditional children’s film, but the children who see it will no doubt want to discuss it! »

Mark Gustafson and Guillermo del Toro, who claim to have worked in symbiosis (“we love each other even more at the end than at the beginning!”, they say), also discussed the staging of Pinocchio as if it were a realistic film.

“It was also a great challenge for the puppeteers, because we made them move and move in the same way as we would have done with human actors, says the one who, four years ago, obtained the ‘Oscar for best direction thanks to The Shape of Water. Pinocchio deals with very adult themes, which bring us back to the real world, but it can also be seen with the family, because it has a lot of heart. We tried to reach the highest levels of emotion. At 58, I’m becoming more and more aware that the only thing you do in this world is leave something behind. The rest is just fading material. I like the idea of ​​leaving something beautiful. »

Pinocchio will drop on Netflix on December 9th.