“Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
“Why won’t you listen to my prayers?”
“Why won’t you listen to my prayers?”
2022 sure was a great year for those of us who enjoy a Pinocchio adaptation and especially, if like me, you’re also a lifelong fan of the directors who breathed life into our little wooden hero. Whereas earlier this year Robert Zemeckis directed a live action version starring his cinematic stable mate Tom Hanks, a version I liked if not loved, beautifully predictably, Guillermo Del Toro’s stop-motion animated adaptation is far more grittier, rustic, surreal and suitably far more dark than Zemeckis’ Disney financed effort. So dark in fact that the director himself has described the film as being about death and Fascism and if that doesn’t cheer you up enough, then also consider this as part of a trilogy of his films (together with The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth) that also cover these themes together with war, the secrecy and destabilising societal effects of war and division, and all whilst shot through the beautifully bizarre cinematic lenses of the genius from Mexico.
Brief spoilers allow for a story nearly as old as time: A grief stricken parent creates a boy child from pine and via the magical and the mercurial the boy comes alive to be loved and adored as a somewhat replacement for the death of a young child whilst being scorned, ridiculed and abused by everyone outside of his creator’s workshop or the guiding assistance of a cricket named here as “Sebastian”.
I’ll commence with Ewan McGregor’s voicing of Pinocchio’s conscience and earthly guide Sebastian. McGregor is the film’s constant narrator in the form of his character being both a cricket and a would be novelist penning his memoirs or his “stridulations of my youth”. Our wooden hero is voiced by Gregory Mann, his creator and now father “Geppetto” is brought to life by David Bradley before a who’s who of stellar film names all inhabit the remainder of Pinocchio’s strange new world, from Ron Perlman as the evil Fascist enforcer “Podesta” to Finn Wolfhard as his son “Candlewick”. There are also a couple of notable twosomes to round off the cast list with the brilliant Christoph Waltz as evil puppet master and carnival owner “Count Volpe” with Cate Blanchett voicing his mistreated monkey assistant “Spazzatura” and pleasingly, the wonderful Tim Blake Nelson voices a flock of “Black Rabbits” who work on behalf of Tilda Swinton in her own dual role (arguably) of both life and indeed death.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio was everything I expected it to be. Dark, foreboding and a meticulous creation of the grim undercurrents and portents of a life lived under the oppression of Fascism and beneath the boot of unrelenting Authoritarianism. I’d even go as far as to say it’s a grim fairy tale told by the master of the darkest of all cinematic arts.
The creation of the boy puppet is scored not out of wood but out of despair, grief and unimaginable loss, the world in which the boy now lives is the blackest of darkness juxtaposed against his most joyous of everlasting light.
If you were expecting anything different than this jagged telling of the Pinocchio story then you haven’t watched and enjoyed the near three decades of stories told by its director here. This is Guillermo Del Toro’s 12th cinematic release (from 1992’s Cronos through to last year’s Nightmare Alley) and I have a feeling that the Mexican filmmaker may well be adding to his two Oscar victories come this year’s star studded ceremony. In addition to any personal golden statuettes for director Del Toro (for the world created, the oppression and societal destruction of war and totalitarianism and the awkward juxtaposition between worshipping a wooden Jesus against the mockery of an equally wooden boy), I expect Oscar nominations for the musical score of Alexandre Desplat (hopefully for the song “Everything is new to me”) and a whole host of production and design nods.
This is everything I expected from Guillermo Del Toro and the master has done it again. Bravo.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. Please find linked below my appreciation of the Robert Zemeckis directed Pinocchio from this year together with two of my more recently published film articles. There are also well over 150 blog articles (with 300+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“Pinocchio” (2022)
Beautifully flawed Father and Son story from Robert Zemeckis.medium.com
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out mystery (2022)
“Tonight, in this very room, a murder will be committed”.medium.com
“Monsters” (2010)
Gareth Edwards incredible cinematic debut.medium.com