As a lot of us have no doubt forgotten, a lot of classic fairy tales are steeped in darkness, pain and tragedy as to not pull any punches when it comes to the moral lessons kids could learn while presumably being traumatized all at the same time – however, if one person remembers how freakish some kids stories should be, it’s Guillermo Del Toro.
Del Toro has spent virtually every frame of his filmmaking career infecting as much dark fantasy and horror as he can into everything he touches, but arguably his most successful outings are the ones that saw him deliver flat-out fairy tales aimed primarily at adults. However, after faithfully delivering such masterpieces as Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II and The Shape Of Water, the maestro of the macabre has finally directed a fantasy film for the kiddies (or, at least, I think it’s for the kiddies) in a stop motion, visual feast for the senses. Of course, it being Del Toro, he sneaks in themes of loss, fascism and numerous references to Frankenstein – but then kids have to learn about that too, right?
During the days of World War I, talented woodcarver Geppetto loses his young son, Carlo during an aerial bombardment that destroys the church he was working in. Twenty years later, in a booze infused rage, the grief stricken old man carves a replica son out of the tree that stood over his grave and then collapses into a drunken stupor, but as he sleeps it off, the ancient wood sprite that lurks in the forest decides to intervene and brings the wooden boy to life.
Tasked with guiding the living puppet in the ways of morality is Sebastian J. Cricket, an aspiring insect author who had originally made his home in the tree that now comprises this Pinocchio’s body. However, after Geppetto gets over the traumatic shock of one of his creations suddenly coming to life, he tries to raise the wilful boy as his own – which proves to be quite hazardous when you realise that wilfulness is openly sneered upon in a fascist time. But while Geppetto and Sebastian try their best to keep their charge out of the way of the stern Podsetá who has taken is dislike to the chaotic nature that Pinocchio brings.
He needn’t have bothered, because soon the naive, excitable puppet finds himself first in the employ of the nefarious showman Count Volpe and his performing monkey, Spazzatura and then in the clutches of the Podsetá when he realises that Pinocchio immortality could be of use to the Fatherland.
But the small, wooden boy’s resilience against death comes at a cost. You see everytime he “dies”, he gets transported to the afterlife where the woodsprite’s sister, Death, keeps him there for a little longer each time. While this doesn’t sound too bad, if Pinocchio wants to ever see his father again he needs to stay in the realm of the living – especially seeing as Geppetto and Sebastian have been swallowed by a gargantuan fish…
When you live in a world where Disney’s stranglehold of popular fairy tales, it’s remarkably tough to unlearn the versions that the House Of Mouse have gifted us – however, if anyone can successfully de-Disney-fy the legend of Pinocchio, it’s going to be Del Toro – but you may be quite surprised at the mature lengths he goes to to make the hyperactive, asbo-courting puppet his own. For a start, Del Toro (who co-directs with Mark Gustafson) opts to make this Pinocchio tackle themes of loss head on by making the grandfatherly Geppetto a man ripped to shreds by twenty years of booze sodden grief after his perky son was accidently vaporized by an accidental bomb drop during World War I. In these opening segments, the director defiantly infuses himself into almost every aspect of the legend, by having Ewan McGregor’s moralistic cricket of conscience, Sebastian literally lives in Pinocchio’s heart like a benevolent parasite; Pinocchio’s creation mirror that of Frankenstein; and having the titular puppet first spring to life with the jerky, spidey movements of a PG rated zombie. In fact, even the fateful bomb drop that kicks everything off strongly resembles the one seen in Del Toro’s 2001’s ghost story, The Devil’s Backbone, but rest assured, the director isn’t trying to make a gateway kids film that inspires them to seek out his other works – although I’d be utterly cool with that.
Anyway, once we move on temporarily from the themes of grief, we settle into a more familiar groove as the easily led puppet is lured away from school to enter the world of showbusiness by Christophe Waltz’s conniving Count Volpe. But its here where we finally get to the real juice of the matter as the effects of World War II soon creep fully into frame and before you know it, Del Toro turns in the same type of innocence vs. fascism themes he gave us in Pan’s Labyrinth. Before you know it, this dark family film gets darker and inbetween the more familiar story beats (giant whale, wishes, nose expanding fibs) we also get Pinocchio performing a rude, scatalogical musical number in order to offend Mussolini (yes, that Mussolini) and even a section where he’s transported to a military recruit training facility in order to become a child soldier for the war effort.
As wild as this all sounds (and I haven’t even covered the bit where our hero is crucified to a burning cross), Del Toro manages to keep it all restrained enough to be palatable (yet thought prevoking) for families while infusing it with a sense of craftsmanship that is just utterly spellbinding in a way that easily counters film’s few shortcomings. If you find Gregory Mann’s Pinocchio fairly abrasive, that’s because that’s exactly who the character is and he’s supposed to invoke the same kind of exasperated, end of their tether parenting seen in the likes of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. Also, compared to the likes of top tier pixar, Pinocchio’s charm and humour is far more niche while its songs are hardly going to keep Disney’s songwriters up all night – there’s nothing here that’s even a fraction as iconic of “I’ve Got No Strings”.
But while catchy tunes and big laughs are all well and good, Pinocchio hold’s its own with a beating heart the size of a nagnetic WWII sea mine as it skillfully weaves real world issues with the wonderfully bizarre visuals that he concocts.
Truly the most original, off-beat version of the story to date – Pinocchio has frequent chats with death during his frequent time-outs from living and Cate Blanchett is drafted in to play a chattering monkey with barely any lines – it’s possibly one of the most pertinent ever made and easily stands a wooden head and shoulders above other recent attempts (Robert Zemeckis, I’m looking at you) that attempts to walk you though genuinely mature themes while never losing an iota of charm.
Del Toro has lovingly crafted yet another masterpiece – no strings attached.
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