It takes a lot of hard work to make a classic story feel fresh again. Disney, which has just about a cultural monopoly on several classic western stories, is particularly bad at this, constantly remaking their old classics in live action in the most soulless way possible. For instance, Pinocchio, released exclusively to Disney+, directed by a depressing Robert Zemeckis, and featuring Tom Hanks bizarrely cast as Gepetto, is nothing more than hollow brand management. A one hundred and five minute echo of a better movie that Disney no longer understands or has any desire to extrapolate on meaningfully.
But sometimes a version of an old story comes along that interestingly adapts, reinterprets and revitalizes the source. For instance, Pinocchio, released to Netflix, directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, and rendered in stunning stop-motion animation, is a radical and earnest retelling of the well-known story that makes new its’ life and pathos. A take on Pinocchio that redefines its’ themes and virtues, that moves with ample beauty, and yet is a far greater tribute to that Walt Disney classic than its’ creatively bankrupt streaming counterpart.
Pinocchio is one of those stories that so deeply fits del Toro’s passions as an artist that it was only a matter of time before he put his stamp on it -like Beauty and Beast and Frankenstein. In the canon of ‘creature’ fantasy stories it is perhaps the great coming-of-age tale: the wooden boy who seeks to be a real boy in a world looking to antagonize and exploit him, but who persists nonetheless. It reckons pretty openly with themes that mean a lot to del Toro, but he also sees in the story powerful tenets of acceptance and fatherly love not so readily apparent in the most famous Disney interpretation, which following on the book it is based on, is largely a morality tale. Pinocchio is an avatar for the child who must learn from his delinquent transgressions, and thus becoming a real boy is a metaphor for a responsible maturity. For del Toro though, Pinocchio is an avatar for difference, his journey one of seeking validation, and becoming a real boy is merely the personal fulfillment and acceptance of that. Both movies depict a cruel world to children, but where one speaks of the dangers of what will happen if you don’t obey, the other attests to the dangers of if you do.
One of del Toro’s most fascinating and indeed brilliant choices was to remove the story from its’ general fairy tale absence of specific context, to place it directly in the realm of fascist Italy in the 1930s. The atmosphere all around Pinocchio and Gepetto is coloured by nationalism, notions of Italian supremacy are rife with not-so-subtle allusions to eugenicist ideology, and references to the almighty cult of Mussolini are scattered throughout -and Pinocchio’s story interacts with these rather organically. Not being a real boy is a genuine matter of danger for Pinocchio, before it becomes the chief factor of his exploitation -coming not so much at the hands of malevolent individuals as a corrupt and evil system. And it is something much more tangible and insidious what Pinocchio goes through here, forced to enact state propaganda before being thrust into the war machine itself due to the small detail of him being able to come back from the dead -making him invaluable as a soldier. It is rooted in the reality of how fascist movements use children to advance agendas and manufacture cannon-fodder. And the moments Pinocchio sees through these, defying the forces of fascism both in small and brazen ways, its’ immensely rewarding -del Toro knows such messages are needed right now.
But this is not to say that the movie is some drastic exercise in contextual realignment for its’ own sake, and indeed with all the realist illusions, this film feels more like a fairy tale than any adaptation on Pinocchio yet made. A part of that is certainly due to the design in the animation, which is so rich in shape and detail -every character and space looks like a carving in a manner that reminds me of The Little Prince, but so much deeper. They feel like they were drawn fully formed out of a folk tale, particularly Pinocchio, Gepetto, and the Cricket. The Blue Fairy though and her sister, who watches over the afterlife, seem borne out of ancient Egyptian myth, tying the story and its’ concepts into much older sources of spirituality. This power lends the film its’ magic quality, and the story’s avenues of soul contribute to it. Multiple times Pinocchio finds himself in the afterlife where he must wait a small period before returning to earth, and with this spirit of death he contemplates mortality and immortality with an emotional heaviness so unexpectedly profound and moving. Del Toro finds the deep sadness of the tale, and is unafraid to explore it.
Nowhere may that be more apparent than in the story of Gepetto, which is predicated on the tragic death of his son Carlo when their village is bombed during the Great War. The trauma of this loss stays with him through the movie in a way that even Pinocchio can’t ameliorate. He was created in fact in a drunken outburst of this pain illustrated with a twinge of Frankensteinian horror. But del Toro resists relishing in this to more intimately uncover the relationship between Pinocchio and Gepetto, one that is marked by affection but of different kinds. Gepetto can’t see Pinocchio as more than a surrogate while Pinocchio craves his fathers’ approval, determined not to be a ‘burden’ to him. A lot of real heart and conflicting complicated emotions are interwoven into their relationship, and they are only more tightly bound by their time apart. We see in action the fruits of Gepetto’s virtues mixed with Pinocchio’s own understanding of the world, imbuing in him a strong sense of moral agency independent of a socio-political apparatus. And what forms between them in the end is an honest love, built on mutual acceptance.
In perhaps the most inspired casting choice of a del Toro film recently, David Bradley plays Gepetto, the gravelly-voiced English character actor an ideal fit for the grief and temperament of this interpretation. The Cricket, a cultured aspiring novelist called Sebastian, is voiced by Ewan McGregor, narrating the movie with beautiful gravity whilst also being the film’s most solid source of comic relief. The terrific cast also includes an ethereal Tilda Swinton as both spirits, Cate Blanchett amusingly cast as a circus monkey, Ron Perlman as the local fascist official, with Finn Wolfhard as his son Candlewick, and Christoph Waltz as the abusive circus master. There are also a quartet of what can only be called Death Rabbits, voiced by Tim Blake Nelson, low-key the funniest characters of a movie that features greater humour than it’ll get credit for.
Pinocchio is also a musical, with a handful of charmingly simple songs, the nicest of which are a soothing lullaby by Gepetto and a toilet humour-laden parody of propagandic nationalism by Pinocchio directed at Mussolini himself. It’s in these that I most feel the hand of del Toro’s co-writer Patrick McHale, creator of Over the Garden Wall, which bore a similar sensibility of juvenile whimsy set against deep themes and dark subjects. Both of course feature fascinating images of purgatory, this one a moody starlit realm of sand. The visual creativity applied is awe-inspiring, the stop-motion technique so singular and captivating –the wood in which Pinocchio is carved expressive in its’ own right. The film is very graceful, its’ designs so sharp yet warm as to evoke the style of Pan’s Labyrinth. Though working off an established source, this film is no less imaginative.
There’s a rather moving sentiment Pinocchio leaves you on that suggests an inherent comfort in death: that our mortality is a precious, valuable thing to be cherished –that it makes Pinocchio whole. I won’t reveal the exact nature of his end-of-tale mortality, but to point out that del Toro likes to “fix” his favourite movies in a way more conducive to his values on ‘the other’ (see The Shape of Water). Certainly though the movie speaks to grief with empathy, and with compassionate encouragement. It speaks to fathers and sons too, and to children, in spite of its’ mature avenues, with great power. Pinocchio has never felt more real.
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