After a grossly botched Disney revamp of the well-known story a few monthsbefore Guillermo del Toro’s vision, expectations ran high. Would the Mexicanfilmmaker be able to bring this story to the people again in a fascinatingway? The answer to that is a resounding ‘yes’, but with a caveat. If theexcellent way of using stop motion is overlooked, this film adaptation alsoneeds a considerable tension arc to keep it up until the end.
The film tells the time-honored story of Gepetto who, this time made evenclearer by an extensive introduction, after the loss of his son, devoteshimself completely to the woodworking he earns his money from. His wish is toimitate his son with wood, but the wooden figure, named Pinocchio, comes tolife one night to his surprise. Will Gepetto manage to fit his new son intosociety? In addition, he must also protect him from Mussolini’s Italy, becausethis time the background is the fascist 1930s.
In 2017, there seemed to be bad news for this production, when Del Toro had toannounce that the project had been scrapped. Luckily, almost exactly a yearlater, Netflix announced that they had hired the director to go ahead and turnit into a stop-motion movie. The enthusiasm surrounding the first conceptimages is fully realized. This way of filmmaking is so time-consuming thatevery frame has to be thought about, as a scene of a few seconds can easilytake several days to get on screen. It remains surprising that this way offilmmaking has still not died out in 2022 and that Netflix dared to take thegamble to give the green light to another production in this way. It producesa breathtakingly beautiful image, in which the action scenes in particularstand out for their degree of tempo that is unexpected for stop-motion.
Very good choices have also been made in the casting of the voice actors. EwanMcGregor proves to be an extremely good storyteller in the form of JiminyCricket. An interesting change has also been made here, with a view to theDisney variant from 1940. This time Cricket is working on an autobiography andcoincidentally chooses the stump of which Pinocchio is made to settle in towrite his magnum opus. Although McGregor sometimes could have been coached alittle better in his studio, it remains a joy to listen to the emotion hebrings to the character throughout. In addition, there is no recognition inany voice that is so great that it distracts from the course of the story,something that seems to be happening more and more with the casting of greatactors in very important voice roles. Household names like Christoph Waltz,David Bradley, and Tilda Swinton definitely steal the show, too.
A special mention is in order for Alexandre Desplat, who deserves to berecognized for his score. The music takes the story a lot further in theright, subtle way and brings heaviness at the moment when this is necessaryfor the story to progress.
However, the choice within that storyline is certainly something to commenton. Screenwriter Patrick McHale wrote it together with Del Toro and thegentlemen seem to have lost their focus somewhat when they arrived at thefinale. In the long run it becomes increasingly difficult to sympathize withboth Pinocchio and Gepetto, something that also bothered the original from1940. However, it should not spoil the fun, because at a moment when theslackness and slowness of the line seems to become too serious, there is avery interesting twist in the story that makes one forget that there was aslow third act in the film.
Guillermo del Toro’s vision Pinocchio is very clear; a refreshing new lookat a familiar story with the well-known weirdness that only this director andscreenwriter manages to bring to his films. It is great to see that even in afilm adaptation of a children’s book, a parallel can still be drawn to hisearlier work in, among other things. Pan ‘s Labyrinth even The Shape ofWater. Even though Del Toro had to share the director’s chair with MarkGustafson this time, it doesn’t detract from a film that is almost brilliant.
The film is now available on Netflix.