Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson's “Pinocchio”

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

A brave and beautiful interpretation of the classic story with real feelings, menace and depth delving into death, loss and the rise of fascism; an instant classic

Knowing that this is Guillermo del Toro’s third installment in a loose trilogy starting with “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” makes a lot of sense. Childhood, loss, death and fascism are the core of these films and “Pinnochio” is no exception. The themes sound dark but the film itself is not despite there being a palpable dread boiling away under the surface. There’s also hints of James Whale’s “Frankenstein”.

Among the standouts in the voice acting is David Bradley as Gepetto, Christoph Waltz as Count Volpe and Gregory Mann as Pinocchio. It’s not often that we get to see David Bradley centre stage or being something more than the villain and he does a wonderful job here with the tragic figure of woodcarver. Having been fortunate enough to have met him a couple years back, it feels Gepetto is probably closer to his actual personality than other parts he’s played. Also, take delight in Cate Blanchett as Spazzatura the monkey who has no intelligible dialogue; she asked for a role and was willing to take anything but as the major roles were filled, all that remained was Spazzatura.

The script by Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale(“Over The Garden Wall”) is rich and surprising merely using Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinnochio as a framework for something that is at once new and familiar.

In terms of the visuals, the stop motion is sumptuous and the detail in the sets and thought put into the mise en scene is staggering. Mark Gustafson has done amazing work here that echoes some of his early work such as the stop motion work on “Return to Oz” in 1985 as well as “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”. Work on “Pinocchio” has been in progress on and off for a decade as various interruptions intruded on development.

For 2022, Del Toro has managed a hat trick in delivering to us “Nightmare Alley”, his series Cabinet of Curiosities and now “Pinnochio”. This is an instant classic that deserves to be considered the best of the Pinnochio interpretations followed by underrated Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.” (adapted from Stanley Kubrick’s treatment which he described as “a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio").