Pinocchio’s story has been told a hundred times—probably more. Barely a month ago, Disney presented the disappointing live action adaptation of its 1940 animated classic. announced that he was working on his own, darker version of the Collodi tale. The Academy Award-winning filmmaker for Best Picture and Best Direction for The Shape of Water (The Shape of Water), named again last year for Nightmare Alley (Nightmare Alley), chose stop motion to realize his vision. And vision is the word, judging by the first few minutes as well as the plethora of images unveiled during a virtual conference at which The duty was invited.
“I wanted to take this story that everyone thinks they know and do something else with it. The main lines are there, the known episodes too, but several are reversed, ostensibly and sometimes poignantly”, reveals Guillermo del Toro about the free nature of his Pinocchio (VF) expected in theaters in November, then on Netflix on December 9.
“I wanted to return to an art, a know-how and a logistics of yesteryear”, continues the filmmaker to explain his use of stop motion, of which he praises the unique visual qualities, very tactile.
“Even the imperfections are beautiful, because they evoke the making of the film, its artisanal dimension. »
However, the film with a budget of 35 million dollars, whose aesthetics are partly inspired by the illustrations of the American artist and author Gris Grimly, benefited from all the advances in digital effects. However, as Mark Gustafson, whom Guillermo del Toro recruited to co-direct, points out: “One of our fundamental principles was: if you can achieve or manufacture something physically, that’s how you do it. »
Metaphor of humanity
It does not take long to understand what Guillermo del Toro meant at the time by “darker version” by discovering the prologue. We follow Geppetto years before the arrival of Pinocchio, in a new and happy chapter of his existence, with his son. A son who will perish during the First World War.
From then on, Geppetto is no longer the old man who would have liked to have a child, but a bereaved father who, in fascist Italy in the 1930s, will sculpt this little wooden boy destined to come to life.
“The two stories that have marked, even defined my childhood, are Pinocchio and Frankenstein — that should tell you about my relationship with my father, notes Guillermo del Toro, laughing. These two characters land in a world that makes no sense to them, and then try to understand it as they go. Pinocchio is one of those rare characters, since there are perhaps only ten in fiction, that we know even if we haven’t read his story. We can use these characters as a metaphor. I am 58 years old, and when I thought about adapting Pinocchio about fifteen years ago, I told myself that he was the ideal character to talk about our fragility, as humans; how much we need each other. »
Hearing this, one thinks of this confidence of the filmmaker as to his propensity to stage children, in an interview he granted us in 2011:
“Children see what adults miss. They perceive worlds within worlds. All the child characters I write are based on me, boys or girls. »
Knowing this, and knowing that the character of Pinocchio has always or almost always held such a place in the filmmaker’s imagination, we say to ourselves that this adaptation can only be one of his most personal films.
Praise of disobedience
Another aspect that distinguishes the film from the source lies in the diversion, not to say the reversal, of the moral defended by the tale.
“Traditionally, it’s a story that promotes obedience, while our film celebrates disobedience,” explains Guillermo del Toro.
In the tale, to become “a real little boy”, Pinocchio must in short learn to be “a good little boy”. A message to which Guillermo del Toro does not subscribe:
“In our version, becoming human does not mean becoming someone else, or trying to change others. Rather, it goes through a better understanding of others, a greater openness… The first step towards the soul, or conscience, goes, in my opinion, through disobedience. This is the difference between an ideal and an ideology. The ideal is built from experiences, compassion and understanding, while an ideology is given to us to blindly obey. »
Speaking of ideology, and as mentioned earlier, fascism is now the backdrop of Pinocchio’s wanderings. This is not a fortuitous narrative choice.
“This background highlights a different kind of patriarchal structure, in wartime, or here under Mussolini. It’s another kind of paternal control. It adds a unique depth and resonance to the film, I think,” notes Guillermo del Toro.
Cinematic offspring
The significance of this change cannot be overstated — for the record, the original tale dates from the late 19th century. Thus, we are dealing with a very young protagonist whose sometimes frightening tribulations are intimately linked to a nightmarish political context, just like in The Devil’s Spine and Pan’s Labyrinthtwo flagship productions of del Toro’s filmography (these are camped during the Spanish Civil War and then under the Franco dictatorship, respectively).
“This film is about childhood and war and is part of a trilogy, with Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Spine “, confirms the director.
Cinephiles fond of the phantasmagorical universe of Guillermo del Toro will be delighted to learn this, the main interested party having believed for a time that he would never be able to complete the said trilogy. In a 2016 interview, del Toro told us, when asked about his intention to finish it:
“It remains very important for me to close this cycle. […] You work intensely on something, then it falls apart, and you realize that two years have passed. Each film has its challenges, its difficulties, sometimes immense, discouraging. But I continue because I can not do otherwise. I like it too much. My wife says it’s like childbirth: you suffer martyrdom, you swear you’ll never go through it again, then you forget the pain and start over. My films are my babies. »
Keeping this last image in mind, complete the cycle with Pinocchio couldn’t be more appropriate.
The film Pinocchio hits theaters in November and hits Netflix on December 9