Pinoc­chio

Becom­ing a real boy isn’t some­thing that cross­es the mind of Pinoc­chio, in Guiller­mo del Toro’s new adap­ta­tion of Car­lo Collodi’s books. This Pinoc­chio is only con­cerned with being a ​“good” boy. Del Toro – in his first ani­mat­ed film as direc­tor – along with co-direc­tor Mark Gustafson (ani­ma­tion direc­tor on Fan­tas­tic Mr Fox) and co-writer Patrick McHale (of Over the Gar­den Wall fame) explore this seem­ing­ly sim­ple ques­tion over var­i­ous adven­tures as Pinoc­chio wan­ders the coun­try in search of the answer, and the sto­ry is updat­ed to Mussolini’s Italy.

A num­ber of father fig­ures – includ­ing a crooked car­ni­val own­er and a fas­cist Podestá – try to teach him that being ​“good” means blind obe­di­ence, either at the ser­vice of cre­at­ing cap­i­tal or killing Italy’s ene­mies. To Gep­pet­to, it means obe­di­ence to the spir­it of his depart­ed son Car­lo, with Pinocchio’s cre­ation occur­ring as an effi­gy made in drunk­en grief.

The result­ing gnarled and asym­met­ri­cal pup­pet design of the wood­en boy already stands apart from pre­vi­ous, soft­er adap­ta­tions but the rest impress­es just as much: Gep­pet­to him­self looks as though he was carved from an old tree. Del Toro and Gustafson’s pro­duc­tion design favours paint­ed back­drops and clock­work facial ani­ma­tion rather than face replace­ment and CG touch-up, giv­ing the whole film a hand­made qual­i­ty, which feels apt for a sto­ry star­ring a carpenter.

Pinocchio’s return to more tra­di­tion­al tech­niques is a breath of fresh air, as it rel­ish­es the slow­ness and tac­til­i­ty of the medi­um. The act­ing con­duct­ed by the ani­ma­tors empha­sis­es slip-ups and stum­bles and moments that don’t real­ly ​“mean” any­thing oth­er than a pause between actions, some­thing del Toro has cred­it­ed to his love of Hayao Miyaza­ki (who direct­ed Por­co Rosso, a fairy tale about bod­i­ly trans­for­ma­tion set against a back­drop of Ital­ian fascism.)

Both known for their fre­quent­ly dis­turb­ing spins on fairy tales and clas­si­cal sto­ry­book struc­ture, del Toro and McHale are a heav­en-made match. Pinocchio’s jour­ney fre­quent­ly mix­es things up between the hor­rif­ic crea­tures of del Toro’s past and the whim­si­cal but spooky ani­mal peo­ple of McHale’s work. But it’s not so strange that it sheds its human­i­ty – if any­thing this might be one of del Toro’s weepi­est movies, as Pinocchio’s immor­tal life brings with it sig­nif­i­cant emo­tion­al burden.

There many digres­sions from the famous 1940 Dis­ney adap­ta­tion, but also fas­ci­nat­ing points of com­mon­al­i­ty. Instead of being blessed with a mor­tal life, Pinoc­chio learns the bit­ter­sweet­ness of how brief it is, and how that brevi­ty shouldn’t be wast­ed on try­ing to fit with­in strict cat­e­gori­sa­tion from par­ent and state alike. The Dis­ney ver­sion warns of dis­as­ter and moral degen­er­a­cy in the absence of authority.

But del Toro’s film loves dis­obe­di­ence. He draws lines between abu­sive father­hood and fas­cism, as Pinoc­chio meets var­i­ous chil­dren also blind­ly try­ing to please their fathers at all costs. By chang­ing the cau­tion­ary tale to be against assim­i­la­tion and cat­e­gori­sa­tion, plus its invig­o­rat­ing update of tra­di­tion­al tech­nique, the film carves out a space not just as the best Pinoc­chio film of this year, but among the finest films the direc­tor has made.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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