Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | Like a movie-sum

In the hands of a filmmaker like Guillermo del Toro, one should obviously not expect a traditional reading of the famous tale that Carlo Collodi wrote in 1881. Seeing his Pinocchio as the last part of a trilogy begun with The Devil’s Spine (2001) and continued with Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), the director of The Shape of Water instead offers a more realistic view.

Built around the deep mourning of a man who cannot recover from the loss of a little boy, the story is transposed into one of the darkest periods of the XX^e century, further marked in Italy by the rise of fascism and the coming to power of Benito Mussolini. The latter also appears in the film as a spectator of a show in which Pinocchio is the star.

Borrowing the technique of animation stop-motionan artisanal technique consisting in making the characters move frame by frame, Pinocchio for which the filmmaker’s signature is an integral part of the title (which distinguishes it from all the other versions) is a bit like a snub to the Disney version of 1940 (and the failed one directed by Robert Zemeckis this year) . And that’s good.

The great success of this free adaptation, whose screenplay was co-written with Patrick McHale (Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall), is to have dismissed from the outset the moralizing aspect that one tends to stick to a tale celebrating the virtues of obedience in children. As Sebastian J. Cricket (whom Ewan McGregor lends his voice in the original version) points out, it is rather an allegory here about “an imperfect father and son” who must accept each other – and love – as they are.

By being transposed to the 1930s, the story thus has many resonances with today’s world, notably echoing the emergence of authoritarian ideologies, to which Guillermo del Toro opposes the notion of disobedience.

The choice of this time is obviously not innocent, the filmmaker evoking again, as he did in the first two parts of his trilogy, the fate of children having to grow up in a cruel world.

Realistic, but bright

Even though this Pinocchio, co-directed by Mark Gustafson, has a bit of Frankenstein in it (Guillermo del Toro’s other favorite tale) and has darker sides, but it’s no less bright for all that. The animation is of such quality that the characters become very real on the screen, to the point where the emotion is sometimes poignant. On this level, the character of Geppetto (to whom David Bradley lends his voice wonderfully in the original version), a man in mourning forever who defies fate by making his wooden puppet, has never been so moving, so deep.

Punctuated by a few songs (Alexandre Desplats also signs the musical score), not devoid of humor (courtesy of Sebastian J. Cricket), Pinocchio arises a bit like a film-sum for Guillermo del Toro. Fans will certainly recognize the anchor points of his universe and the nods to his previous feature films, from the visual aspect of certain creatures, somewhat Hellboyup to the circus atmosphere of Nightmare Alley.

Pinocchio, which the Mexican filmmaker cogitated for more than 10 years with an army of animators, is without a doubt one of Guillermo del Toro’s greatest successes. This film, aimed at both adults and youngsters, is available exclusively on Netflix.

On Netflix

Animation Film

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (V.F.: Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro)

Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson

With the voices of Ewan McGregor, David Bradley and Gregory Mann

1:57 a.m.

8/10