‘Pinocchio Review: Guillermo Del Toros Best Movie In A Decade Is A StopMotion Triumph

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15 Oct, 2022

‘Pinocchio Review: Guillermo Del Toros Best Movie In A Decade Is A StopMotion Triumph

Pinocchio Guillermo del Toro reimagines the classic fantasy tale in some of the best stop-motion animation in years, a powerful and inspiring story of acceptance and love between father and son in the face of pain, suffering and fascism. , and the director's love of monsters in the best film of the decade.

The film takes place in Italy in the 1930s, when the country was hit by fascism. We see how a dangerous ideology spreads quickly and imperceptibly at first, and what begins as a simple urban forge about uniformity and order gives way to zealous mobs shouting against the Duce, sending children to camps and all sorts of people. .of exceptions - or worse.

In the midst of all this, we meet Geppetto, a humble woodcarver who was once loved by everyone and had a happy outlook on life. Everything changes when he loses his son in a senseless air raid on the city at the end of the Great War, Geppetto becomes a heartbroken drunk who one day curses God and the laws of nature and decides to bring his son back to life. Cut the doll to the size of the child. David Bradley was great as Geppetto, but it was the ShadowMachine animation team that pushed the boundaries of stop-motion to create cinema's best puppets.

When Geppetto falls and weeps at his son's grave, he not only feels pain in his vocal performances, but also sees the wayang's gasping breaths, moving his legs, waving his hands; even the clothes move and flow naturally with the doll's body, something you rarely see in stop-motion. Just as Pinocchio's wooden body magically comes to life in the film, del Toro, who co-stars with Mark Gustafson, and their army of more than 40 animators bring the wooden puppets (both technically plastic and silicone) to life. the most amazing movie roles of the year - animated or not.

Each character acts and behaves like a completely different person, and the show is animated in 2 seconds to recreate their imperfect movements (animate half the frame of a normal movie). They get angry and itchy, make mistakes when sitting and carry weights. Meanwhile, cinematographer Frank Passingham brings lighting and blocking techniques directly to the film, making it look like it was shot in natural light and negative space like Hayao Miyazaki.

Geppetto is making a wooden child in the grave. Like Victor Frankenstein, he's softened by the power he's forced to leave alone, and his creativity is unnatural, so this version of Pinocchio has more in common with Frankenstein's stony appearance than Disney's unique appearance. . . Admittedly, Geppetto's work is incomplete when it comes to life, and he's pretty ugly and acts more like a J-horror monster.

In many ways, Pinocchio is a giant middle finger to the Disneyization of Carlo Collodi's original stories and fairy tales in general. While this is a movie that the whole family can watch and learn from, it never glosses over the story or talks down to the kids. Remnants of the original story remain, such as Pinocchio's time at the circus, the lessons he learns about being good, and the terrifying shark mess (done here as a fantastic homage to Ray Harryhausen), but here the story is redefined as rebellion. hope .. Running to the circus is not initially a guilty choice of laziness, but a desperate plea to accept and reject the conformity and pleasure of the fascist urban school.

If you were expecting the whole "During Mussolini's Italy" set to be mere window dressing, think again, as the threat of fascism permeates every aspect of the film, right down to Pinocchio's action circus, a propaganda spectacle for support. of the army. Del Toro's decade-long screenplay, first with Matthew Robbins and now with Behind the Garden Wall creator Patrick McHale, is about defiance, turning what should once again be seen as an evil monster into the world's only hero. history. makes mistakes in people's ways and rejects them.

Similarly, the film does not set Pinocchio's goal of becoming a real boy, and does not shy away from the horrors of real life. The creature that brings Pinocchio to life is not a traditional elf, but a brutally beautiful creature that looks like the exact biblical angel with wings full of eyes - more like Hellboy the Grim Reaper. 2. When Pinocchio first wakes up, he looks like a nightmare, a curious child thrown into an unknown world, a trampling, crushing, disrespectful child. His world is not a world of moral teachings and honors, but a world of cruelty, death and violence. Like Fava's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, this film is set in a very brutal time and focuses on how children cope and suffer. There are some pretty gruesome images, and the gruesome deaths aren't just bad guys.

However, Pinocchio is far from a sour or dark film. It's about the fleeting beauty of life, this movie isn't about a monster who wants to be a real boy, it's about a monster who wants to be loved and accepted as he is by his creator. It's a film about imperfect fathers and imperfect sons, how to avoid and live with expectations, how to accept and deal with the fact that life will end, when loved ones leave us. our time together. Horror, of course, but also warmth, laughter and lots of songs. Patrick McHale, who gave us the hit "Patatoes and Molasses" in 2014, has written some songs with Roban Katz and del Toro that are fun, yet melancholic and deep. As for Alexandre Desplat's score, it's essentially a spiritual extension of his score for The Picture of Water , and fits the romantic tone of the film perfectly.

There's plenty of comedy here, too, thanks in large part to sardonic Ewan McGregor and up-and-coming philosopher Sebastian J. Cricket. Due to the film's small size and tendency to overshoot, there are many visual flaws and it works every time. While many popular cartoons feel like they're not acting in real life, here the actors are so attached to their stop-motion characters that it's not always clear who's playing whom.

Guillermo del Toro spent more than a decade making his dream stop-motion film, and during that time he matured as a director. Pinocchio, however, seems to be the best combination of the classic del Toro and the young del Toro, with the wisdom and melancholy that comes with age and experience, but with a burning love for the fairy tales of his Spanish-language films. Perhaps most impressive is how Pinocchio pushes old forms of animation into new places and gives life to inanimate objects such as the puppets themselves.