Giullermo del Toro's Pinnoccio (Film Review)
Yes, that's really the film's full tiltle. Deservedly so, and not just to differentiate it from all the other adaptions. Incidentally, personal background: the version of Pinnoccio I imprinted on is neither the earliest Disney one nor Collodi's original novel, nor any of the other movies, but the cartoon series (Japanese in origin, I think) I watched as a child, where Pinnoccio's main conscience-embodying sidekick wasn't a cricket but Gina the duck, and the credits melody was an earworm ("Pinnnooochiooooo"). Going by this, two watched films and osmosis, I think the two biggest challenges any current day adaption of Pinnoccio faces is that on the one hand, Collodi's novel is considerably darker (didn't Collodi have to be talked out of killing off Pinnocio at the end?) than your standard family film, but otoh, there's also the hammer fisted moralizing going on re: Pinnoccio having to learn to be a good boy, with playful idlness leading straight to existence as an ass.
Now, what del Toro did I found to result in an excellent film, and very much one that works for our time, but by doing it he argued directly against various of the basic premises. (This is not a complaint on my part, btw. I'm with him regarding those.) For starters, he gave the story a very definite temporal setting. It starts a few years before Pinnoccio's creation in the middle of WWI in Italy, and is mainly set in the 1920s, with fascism on the rise and Mussolini just in power (i.e. ca 1924/1925). By which fact you can see we're not dealing with a timeless idyllic Italy as a background here. The mixture of fairy tale and take on fascist history invites comparison to Pan's Labyrinth, and I can see it especially in one story element (more about this later), but I think given that Pan's Labyrinth was released at a time when fascism seemed largely consigned to history, setting Pinnoccio in that era might have been more inspired by the present.
In addition to the historical background, the biggest alteration del Toro made is about who gets learning arcs and what they learn. Gepetto in the first five minutes of the film loses his (biological) son Carlo (age 10) to a random WWI bomb, is heartbroken forever after and a few years later in a drunken desperate rage makes a wooden puppet based on his son out of the pine growing over his son's grave. Cue blue fairy (very much a Del Toro style fairy, much like her sister and counter part, Death) providing life to the doll. Now, Pinnoccio is cheerful and anarchic, but he is essentially good and affectionate with everyone he meets. It's Gepetto who has to learn (not to force Pinnoccio to be someone he's not, to get out of his grief which over the years has become self absorbed and to live and see others again). The same is true for the cricket (here called Sebastian, not Jiminy), who starts out as self important and smug (and ends up in Pinnoccio's heart by accident, as he wanted to live in the pine tree Pinnocio was made of) and learns more through the wild life with Pinnocchio than he teaches to Pinnochio.
The various book villains - the puppeteer, the Fox, the Cat - have all become one (human) character, Volpe, who is a puppeteer fallen on hard times and determined to use Pinnochio. There is, however, a new villain, the local podesta and leader of the fascists in Gepetto's village, who also has a son. Said son (voiced by one of the Strange Things kids) starts out as something of a bully and hostile to Pinnocchio, but the two become friends and help each other; the entire subplot regarding the son was where I saw the greatest parallel to Pan's Labyrinth, specifically the "he won't even know your name" moment (if you've seen Pan's Labyrinth, you know what I mean). Gepetto and the Podesta are both fathers with wrong wrong expectations that could or do damage their sons, but Gepetto is acting out of grief and can learn, he's capable of prioritizing love; the fascist father, otoh, is someone who can only do damage and warp not just his son's mindset, and so he's probably the worst antagonist of the film (which includes Mussolini having a cameo), and needs to be defeated. Instead of lazy children lured to an amusement park of an island where they're turned into donkeys, here the sinister ploy is for children to be sent to a fascist youth camp by the promise of heroics and a lot of patriotic clichés so they can be turned into soldiers and mindlessly obedient followers, and that's what Pinnoccio, his untameable anarchy, sense of joy and capacity for friendship work against.
The visuals are great throughout, and so's the voice acting. Mind you: the entire film has no female characters unless you count the Blue Fairy and her sister Death, both of whom look utterly non-humanly alien and beautifully mythic in a Del Toro way but are voiced by female actors, and they don't show up often. Even Carlo's mother is just mentioned as being dead in once sentence in the opening backstory sequence. But because of the whole setting and themes, it kind of works; not that there aren't female fascists, but del Toro's choice of father/son stories, the different ways you can be a father, and what kind of man you definitely do NOT want to be fit with a world where being a woman isn't an alternative, because, crowd scenes aside, there aren't any.
It won't surprise you that the ending is different, too; in a version of Gepetto's wish for a obedient child just like the late and idealiized Carlo is excplicitly stated as wrong, Pinnocio's reward can't be to become "a real boy" (he's always been real). I thought the ending Del Toro choise worked beautifully for his versions of the characters and with his themes. This might not be the ultimate Pinnoccio adaption, but it's certainly the most oriiginal and interesting one I've come across so far.
Now, what del Toro did I found to result in an excellent film, and very much one that works for our time, but by doing it he argued directly against various of the basic premises. (This is not a complaint on my part, btw. I'm with him regarding those.) For starters, he gave the story a very definite temporal setting. It starts a few years before Pinnoccio's creation in the middle of WWI in Italy, and is mainly set in the 1920s, with fascism on the rise and Mussolini just in power (i.e. ca 1924/1925). By which fact you can see we're not dealing with a timeless idyllic Italy as a background here. The mixture of fairy tale and take on fascist history invites comparison to Pan's Labyrinth, and I can see it especially in one story element (more about this later), but I think given that Pan's Labyrinth was released at a time when fascism seemed largely consigned to history, setting Pinnoccio in that era might have been more inspired by the present.
In addition to the historical background, the biggest alteration del Toro made is about who gets learning arcs and what they learn. Gepetto in the first five minutes of the film loses his (biological) son Carlo (age 10) to a random WWI bomb, is heartbroken forever after and a few years later in a drunken desperate rage makes a wooden puppet based on his son out of the pine growing over his son's grave. Cue blue fairy (very much a Del Toro style fairy, much like her sister and counter part, Death) providing life to the doll. Now, Pinnoccio is cheerful and anarchic, but he is essentially good and affectionate with everyone he meets. It's Gepetto who has to learn (not to force Pinnoccio to be someone he's not, to get out of his grief which over the years has become self absorbed and to live and see others again). The same is true for the cricket (here called Sebastian, not Jiminy), who starts out as self important and smug (and ends up in Pinnoccio's heart by accident, as he wanted to live in the pine tree Pinnocio was made of) and learns more through the wild life with Pinnocchio than he teaches to Pinnochio.
The various book villains - the puppeteer, the Fox, the Cat - have all become one (human) character, Volpe, who is a puppeteer fallen on hard times and determined to use Pinnochio. There is, however, a new villain, the local podesta and leader of the fascists in Gepetto's village, who also has a son. Said son (voiced by one of the Strange Things kids) starts out as something of a bully and hostile to Pinnocchio, but the two become friends and help each other; the entire subplot regarding the son was where I saw the greatest parallel to Pan's Labyrinth, specifically the "he won't even know your name" moment (if you've seen Pan's Labyrinth, you know what I mean). Gepetto and the Podesta are both fathers with wrong wrong expectations that could or do damage their sons, but Gepetto is acting out of grief and can learn, he's capable of prioritizing love; the fascist father, otoh, is someone who can only do damage and warp not just his son's mindset, and so he's probably the worst antagonist of the film (which includes Mussolini having a cameo), and needs to be defeated. Instead of lazy children lured to an amusement park of an island where they're turned into donkeys, here the sinister ploy is for children to be sent to a fascist youth camp by the promise of heroics and a lot of patriotic clichés so they can be turned into soldiers and mindlessly obedient followers, and that's what Pinnoccio, his untameable anarchy, sense of joy and capacity for friendship work against.
The visuals are great throughout, and so's the voice acting. Mind you: the entire film has no female characters unless you count the Blue Fairy and her sister Death, both of whom look utterly non-humanly alien and beautifully mythic in a Del Toro way but are voiced by female actors, and they don't show up often. Even Carlo's mother is just mentioned as being dead in once sentence in the opening backstory sequence. But because of the whole setting and themes, it kind of works; not that there aren't female fascists, but del Toro's choice of father/son stories, the different ways you can be a father, and what kind of man you definitely do NOT want to be fit with a world where being a woman isn't an alternative, because, crowd scenes aside, there aren't any.
It won't surprise you that the ending is different, too; in a version of Gepetto's wish for a obedient child just like the late and idealiized Carlo is excplicitly stated as wrong, Pinnocio's reward can't be to become "a real boy" (he's always been real). I thought the ending Del Toro choise worked beautifully for his versions of the characters and with his themes. This might not be the ultimate Pinnoccio adaption, but it's certainly the most oriiginal and interesting one I've come across so far.