Originally published Oct. 15, 2022
A long-brewing passion project for Guillermo del Toro, this stop-motion animated version of The Adventures of Pinocchio puts the visionary Mexican director firmly in Tim Burton territory with a visually dazzling but dramatically patchy re-imagining of Carlo Collodi’s much-filmed Italian fairy tale. First announced in 2008, this lavish-looking production spent more than a decade in development limbo, struggling for studio backers before Netflix finally came on board in 2018. Featuring a stellar voice cast including Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton and John Turtorro, Del Toro’s first animated feature world premieres at the BFI London Film Festival today. A limited theatrical release is planned for November ahead of Netflix launch on December 9.
Published in 1883, Collodi’s evergeen fable has already been adapted for the screen more than 20 times, most famously in the classic 1940 Disney animation. Indeed, Del Toro’s version arrives just weeks after Disney’s poorly received live-action remake, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, though aesthetically it has more in common with Matteo Garrone’s Italian-language adaptation from 2019, which highlighted the story’s more macabre and surreal elements. But Del Toro and his team never seem to find a confident tone, instead striking an uneasy balance between family-friendly levity and Burton-esque darkness. The characterisation is broad, the humour laboured, and the handful of songs (many co-written by Del Toro) are mostly forgettable.
Working in collaboration with co-director Mark Gustafson, and co-writers Patrick McHale and Matthew Robbins, Del Toro updates the story to early 20th century Tuscany. Grieving for the son he lost during a freak World War I bombing raid, skilled carpenter Gepetto (David Bradley) carves himself a wooden replacement, Pinocchio (Gregory Mann), who is then given life by a mysterious and slightly sinister woodland fairy (Swinton). This magical marionette is treated with suspicion by the superstitious townsfolk, but coveted as a potentially valuable asset by unscrupulous puppet-show boss Count Volpe (Waltz) and menacing fascist godfather Podesta (Perlman). Serving as sporadic narrator of Pinocchio’s picaresque adventures is the comically pompous Sebastian J. Cricket (McGregor), the unnamed talking cricket from Collodi’s novel, later christened Jiminy Cricket in the Disney adaptation.
Del Toro’s boldest innovation here is setting the story in Mussolini’s Italy, inviting parallels between the real-life horrors of fascism and the nightmare fantasy imagery of fairy tales, just as he did so fruitfully in The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). This promising subplot climaxes with a clownish cameo by Il Duce himself. But the director seems to lose interest in this potentially rich theme midway through the film, literally blowing it to pieces with yet another random bombing raid so he can move the action elsewhere. Pinocchio is full of these arbitrary narrative shifts, including a Groundhog Day-style device in which the wooden hero can seemingly die and come back to life many times, weakening any sense of physical jeopardy or emotional force that the patchwork plot might have had.
As we might expect from Del Toro, backed here by a vast army of animators and artists, Pinocchio looks fantastic. Inspired by Gris Grimly’s neo-Gothic illustrations for his 2002 edition of Collodi’s novel, the stop-motion character designs are beautifully stylised retro creations with the blocky feel of wood carvings. The high-resolution backdrops are also superbly rendered, from a luminous digital ocean to a grubby, crumbling, ancient amphitheatre and the biomorphic landscaped interior of a giant sea monster that swallows both Pinocchio and Gepetto. Del Toro remains one of the most visually imaginative directors in modern cinema, and a huge amount of skill and artistry has clearly gone into this project. What a shame the end result feels all too wooden.
Directors: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson
Screenwiters: Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale, Matthew Robbins, based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Producers: Guillermo del Toro, Lisa Henson, Alexander Bulkley, Corey Campodonico, Gary Ungar
Cast: Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Ron Perlman, Cate Blanchett, Finn Wolfhard, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton
Cinematography: Frank Passingham
Editing: Holly Klein, Ken Schretzmann
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Production companies: Netflix Animation (US), The Jim Henson Company (US), ShadowMachine (US)
Venue: BFI London Film Festival (Gala)
In English
114 minutes
