Guillermo del Toro I remember watching the animated version of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio with my mom as a kid. He found the story compelling due to the horrific situation involving a wooden doll who has come to life but longs to be a real boy.
Pinocchio is kidnapped. He is forced to appear in a traveling show. And he must rescue his “father”, the wood carver Geppetto, from the belly of an evil whale named Monstro.
“It was the first time I saw someone understand how scary childhood was for me. Del Toro said last month at his version of Pinocchio’s San Francisco show at the nonprofit SFFilm event I respect the director’s work. “I said, ‘That’s what it feels like to be a kid.'”
Decades later, Pan’s Labyrinth and shape of water I decided to pitch a new version of the story. It took him 10 to 15 years to get the funding because all the major studios turned him down. He laughs when I explain why.
“I came and said it was about death and life and the rise of Mussolini.
That is, until Netflix decides to green light Del Toro’s vision of Pinocchiowhich Broadcasting on a video distribution service from friday. Del Toro thanked his Netflix and other services for greenlighting TV series and films that more traditional studios have taken over.
As for Pinocchio, this version is inspired by the original 1883 story by Italian author Carlo Collodi, with the setting replaced in the 1930s against the backdrop of the rise of fascism in Italy.
Meet Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley) as he mourns the accidental death of his beloved son Carlo. One night, in a storm of wine-fueled grief and rage, Geppetto cuts down a large pine tree. The Pine Tree happened to be the newly adopted home of a cricket who traveled the world with his literary aspirations. .
An otherworldly spirit (Tilda Swinton) takes pity on the poor old man and magically gives the puppet life after Geppetto collapses on his bed. She assigns a disgruntled insect, Sebastian J. Cricket (charmingly voiced by Ewan McGregor), to be his guide and conscience.
Even with its moments of humor and charm, this is definitely not an animated movie for children. When Pinocchio is introduced to the local townspeople at Sunday Mass, Del His Toro aptly presents a scene as bizarre as a wooden puppet comes to life. This is in contrast to the Disney version where Pinocchio waltzes through town.
“I wanted him to land in a church like a total freak,” Del Toro said.
Del Toro also points out that Benito Mussolini, crouching briefly and menacingly, will also make an appearance and arrive on screen. Super stretch inspired by Tex Avery limousine. The fascist dictator orders his men to “shoot the doll” and sends Pinocchio to the afterlife to meet death.
Pinocchio actually visits the afterlife a few times, but that becomes a joke.
In this version of the story, Pinocchio’s arrival is far from the happy wish given to Geppetto. . Even as he adjusts to the fact that his doll has a life of his own, Geppetto expresses frustration and disappointment rather than love and acceptance.
After all, Pinocchio is not Carlo.
The film takes us far and wide, from the pair’s mountain village to a traveling carnival, a fascist training camp and, of course, the belly of a giant sea monster. But the real journey of the film is an emotional one, as both Pinocchio and Geppetto learn to accept and love each other.Credits go to young actor Gregory Mann, who voices Carlo and Pinocchio . sing an original song that appears in the movie(Del Toro helped write some of the lyrics.)
The innovation, however, isn’t in the story, but in the way del Toro presents it.Stop-motion animation is a painstaking process. It took 1,000 days to shoot the movie. The puppet must be moved and positioned frame by frame. And he has 24 frames per second in this nearly two-hour movie. According to Del Toro, more than 60 crew members are working on the production at the same time.
But most importantly, it treats the animators as actors (they are credited as such) and shows that animation is an art form, not just a genre for children.
“Stop-motion is almost a religious contact between the animator and the puppet,” he said. “No other medium of animation has that intimacy, that call. [Japanese puppet] In a theater called Bunraku, the puppets are extensions of the performer’s limbs and emotions. ”
He told the animators that he wanted to feel what they felt and see that emotion translated into the characters on screen.
“I don’t want to see the puppet move. I want to see it move. To move is to give it an anima, a soul,” Del Toro said. “So my biggest hope is to show you a style of acting that has never been seen before on stop-motion screens.”
At least for me, Del Toro got his wish. By the end of the story, animated puppets are the on-screen characters brought to life by a talented cast that includes Ron Perlman, John Turturro, Christoph Waltz, and Cate Blanchett (as the monkey Spazatura). I forgot.
That aside, the Mexican director’s take on Pinocchio will appeal to moviegoers who crave less saccharine narratives and believe younger audiences can handle the more terrifying. , SFFilm Honors winner and sold-out theater, Del Toro says Pinocchio is the epitome of love.
“What I’ve learned the hard way is that every movie is your last. There’s no reason not to. Do it as perfectly as you can,” he applauded. “If you must die [with] This movie will kill me. I am not useful in other areas. I don’t know if I’ll shoot again, so I’ll do my best every time. you never do ”