Animation Defenestration: The other one from Netflix

 

 

Title: Pinocchio aka Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

What Year?: 2022

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Improbable Experiment

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I’m just coming out of a spell that has beat the Hell out of my blogging, and well aware that I was having plenty of trouble before. One thing I remembered in the process ia that it has been a really long time since I did an animation review. That brought me to look through some new and old material I had been meaning to get to, and that led me to something truly different, except for the time I did the exact same thing. I present Pinocchio, the Netflix version, and it is… odd. Even for me.

Our story begins with an introduction to Geppetto, a toymaker who tragically loses his only child to war. Fast forward, and we find him as an old man wishing for a second chance. Somehow, his wish reaches the Blue Fairy, a freaky entity that looks half old-school fairy and half hard-core Biblical angel, who as usual does what nobody asked for and won’t necessarily help by bringing one of his wooden puppets to life. In this variation, the townspeople actually notice a fully sentient magical entity in their midst and prepare to destroy the abomination. The love of Geppetto wins them over, however, at least for the time being. Things go awry when the father tries to send his son to school for no obvious reason, only to have him wander off with a literal slavemaster of a showman who still actually puts the puppet to productive work. As the misadventures continue, Pinocchio discovers the price of the miracle that brought him to life: He can die after a fashion, as explained by the actually helpful Queen of the Netherworld, but he is destined to return to life every time. This soon attracts the interest of the military, which turns out to be the forces of Mussolini, while Geppetto is swallowed by the enormous Dogfish. Pinocchio must escape the actual Fascists and save his father from the sea monster, but the price of his choices may be forever!

Pinocchio is a 2022 Claymation film by Guillermo Del Toro (see Mimic 2, kind of) and Jim Henson Productions, based on the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (see… Pinocchio In Outer Space?). Del Toro had reportedly developed the project since 2008, before securing funding from Netflix (see The Mitchells Vs. The Machines). It was released for streaming in 2022, coinciding with a Disney remake of the 1940 film of the same name (no way in Hell…) and at least one other adaptation of the book. In contrast to the Disney film, the Netflix film was well-received by animation fans and critics. It remains available for streaming on Netflix.

For my experiences, what stands out in my mind is that I had a reverse of the usual pop culture experience: When I was a kid, I obviously knew of the Disney film, but my one direct experience with the strange mythos was reading an apparently faithful storybook version of the novel. In full hindsight, I came to two conclusions. First, the Disney film is the all-around best the studio ever made, which is like a confession under torture for a lifelong Fantasia junkie like me. (See Allegro Non Troppo, if anything…) Second, almost everything the film achieved was in spite of source material that is, to use “authentic” Serbo-Croatian, absolute kaka. Sure, I didn’t read the “real” book, but I got through the original story without prejudice, and it couldn’t win over kid me. Moreover, every account I can recall from those who have credibly claimed to be familiar with the  novel are even less favorable than mine, to the point of raising the question if the author qualifies as proto-Fascist. (Oh yeah, everybody hates the Blue Fairy.) With all that unloaded, I freely admit to being puzzled why such an inauspicious book has been adapted repeatedly, before and after the Disney film, and why, outside of the Disney influence, it would continue to attract interest today. If you’re asking these questions, the present film offers some answers, but still won’t help.

Moving forward, the obvious thing to say about this film is that it is both beautifully animated and strikingly mature. This surely accounts for why it has won over animation reviewers, who have long since tired of both mindlessly cute “kids” animation and gross-out gags posing as “adult” animation. If there is a problem, it is that this is neither fish nor fowl. The very freaky animation is not going to win over kids, while the story is still not as dark as the novel or even the Disney original. Then there are two specific choices that can be considered bold yet don’t deliver a proportionate payoff. First, the literally rough-hewn design of Pinocchio himself is an odd point to depart from both Disney and the novel, which can border on distracting. The only real “plus” to come with it is that it’s easier to accept the nose of this unsanded wooden boy sprouting into a sapling. Second, the Pleasure Island episode is entirely replaced with a new anti-war narrative. This removes the most famous, memorable and flatly horrifying scenes of the core narrative, and with it admittedly a number of effects that could have turned out badly in the Claymation medium. Of course, the question is and should be what we get in return. The explicit depiction of Fascism gives the film a much stronger political bite, in many ways on par with the actual Disney propaganda cartoons. Even so, the return is modest at best, and again, it just feels like a poor compromise. It isn’t nearly edgy enough to push this into adult-oriented satire, yet it falls even further short of the sheer existential terror of the allegedly all-ages Disney “original”.

That still leaves the bigger question, what does this do with the story and especially the character? If there’s a distinct “take” here, it is that this Pinocchio has even fewer moral flaws than the Disneyfied version, without losing all nuance. He is seemingly incapable of the foul temper and outright malice of the novel’s antihero (you can bet I always knew what happens to the cricket, but he can most certainly be manipulated, deceived and coerced. What one is tempted to look for is any sign of the story questioning the very skewed “lessons” of the novel. We get a little of this in a late sequence where Pinocchio freely uses his growing nose to good purpose, in the process clearly delineating between obvious fantasy and damaging untruths. The greatest potential lies in Pinocchio being sent to school. Here, we are given a clear rationale, which could have been an intriguing if Pinocchio actually got into the classroom. What would have been most interesting, however, would have been a legitimate debate over whether human education would benefit an entity who demonstrates the power to speak at a minimum within moments of his creation. That leaves one more unavoidable rant on Del Toro, who has rarely turned out anything I didn’t promptly see and like. In light of that history, this film felt like the epitaph of a good friend who died doing something stupid. There’s all the wonder and weirdness he brought to Mimic, Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy. But with it is the inescapable feeling that even then, he was hitting the boundaries of his own limitations as much as what the studio system would support.

That leaves the “one scene”, and the one I decided to come back to was his first meeting with the Queen of the Netherworld, who has no name within the film. After Pinocchio is carried into the underworld, he emerges from a ceremonial coffin and talks to a group of odd characters who brought him in. One of them comments that he will have to see “the boss”, without interrupting a card game. Sure enough, a red light shines on Pinocchio, and he comes into the presence of the Queen. At first, she is only evidenced by two glowing spotlight eyes and her voice, the latter courtesy of Tilda Swinton. The form comes into full view as the most strange and memorable creature in the movie, something like a manticore with horns, semi-vestigial wings and a surplus of eyes. The most unsettling feature is that there is no movement of her lips as she explains Pinocchio’s plight with far more clarity and empathy than the Blue Fairy, referred to as her “sister”. One can read reincarnation or resurrection into her description of Pinocchio as a “wooden boy with a borrowed soul”, but nothing more is said to clarify the issue. Her final reveal is that Pinocchio will spend more time in the Netherworld each time he dies, shown with an ominous hourglass. The wooden boy declares that he has a question, but of course, his time has run out. It’s a great scene in a generally good movie, and that sums up why I find the whole less than its parts.

In closing, I come as usual to the rating. This is one case where I freely admit that my rating is harsher than the objective quality warrants. However, I have always said that my reviews are on a curve that can swing both ways. Given what I’m usually dealing with, that means I’m being generous far more often than not, but that doesn’t mean I have gone so nose-blind that I cannot hold truly talented creators to a higher and completely appropriate standard. For me personally, the rating is first and foremost an expression of my disappointment. It’s obviously not bad, it’s certainly better than other movies I have given the same rating (see Chicken Little), it’s just not the same from a creator who can usually hit my soft spots even on his off-day. For me, that’s enough to count as closure. “If I had legs…”