To borrow a phrase from the movie itself, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is a “terrible joy.”
As might have been expected, the director of the likes of Nightmare Alley, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Devil’s Backbone has envisioned the Carlo Collodi children’s story as a strangely beautiful creep show. Perhaps even more so than Disney’s terrifying 1940 Pinocchio, this stop-motion variation—co-directed by del Toro and animator Mark Gustafson—leans into the more unnerving aspects of a wooden puppet coming to life, while still capturing the fairy-tale wonder at the heart of the tale.
Consider the night of Pinocchio’s creation. Raw over losing his young son Carlo during World War I, when a bomb was dropped on their small Italian village, a drunken, enraged Geppetto (David Bradley) chops down the memorial pine standing watch over Carlo’s grave and hacks away at it—flashes of lightning casting the fearsome shadow of an axe against the wall—until the shape of an ungainly boy begins to form. Sebastian (Ewan McGregor), the cricket who had been living in the pine and now finds his hollowed home at the center of Pinocchio’s chest, describes the event as a “house of horrors.”
There are other, distinct del Toro touches beyond the bomb, which recalls the undetonated device that stands like a sentinel in the orphanage courtyard in The Devil’s Backbone. As in that Spanish-set film, fascism lurks around this movie’s edges (the story proper takes place during World War II, when a Mussolini-serving commandant has taken charge of Geppetto’s village). The blue wood sprite (Tilda Swinton) who grants Pinocchio life boasts imposing wings adorned with eyes, like an homage to the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth—as well as the six-winged creatures in the Book of Revelation. Indeed, religion once again has a complicated presence in a del Toro film. A crucifix that Geppetto installs in the village church during the movie’s prologue becomes a multifaceted motif. It’s mocked when Pinocchio visits the church and playfully mimics Jesus’ position, but is later given solemn reverence when Pinocchio’s arm is broken in a way that recalls the damage the crucifix suffers from that dropped bomb.
All of this comes to life with the tactile veracity that only stop-motion animation can provide. What better way to envision the Pinocchio story than to build the character from actual wood? (OK, I’m sure the animators used some sort of modeling material, but the point stands.) Notice the deep ridges of a pine cone and the smooth curves of Carlo’s clogs—you just know you could feel these details with your fingers. In my favorite visual touch, Sebastian—given a wonderfully droll lilt by McGregor—continues to live in Pinocchio’s chest. When the puppet goes to sleep at night, the candle from Sebastian’s writing desk, where he is chronicling Pinocchio’s story, emits from his midsection with a warm, heartbeat glow.
As co-writer of the script with Patrick McHale, del Toro retains some elements of the earlier versions of this story while tweaking others. (There are no donkey boys, but we do get a dazzlingly fearsome variation on the sea beast Monstro.) And if earlier variations were more concerned with the existential idea of life—how it’s defined, what we must do to deserve it—del Toro’s Pinocchio gives more thought to death. Under the shadow of mortality, life—like this gem of a picture—can be a terrible joy.
(11/17/2022)
