On line this December 9 on Netflix, the film Pinocchio directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson offers a new interpretation of the tale by Carlo Collodi, which has already been adapted many times for the screen. Here are 5 differences between this new stop-motion work and the animated film from Disney studios.
Warning, this article contains spoilers. Pinocchio (2022)!
It’s impossible to say exactly when the story of Disney’s Pinocchio takes place. In the movie Pinocchio realized by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, the plot is set in the Fascist Italy of Mussolini in the 1930s in a village where Gepetto, a weary carpenter, watches his son Carlo die following the dropping of a bomb from Italian planes. He then creates a puppet called Pinocchio, who will find himself a little later in the film enlisted in the army among other children. He will have to follow a difficult training denouncing with resentment the fascism reigning in Italy. Dramatic scenes that put into perspective the historical reality of the time in which Pinocchiooffering a new look at this adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s tale.
The film Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro explores darker themes
Those who grew up with the studios animated film disney are perhaps still traumatized by the scene where the children turn into donkeys on the Enchanted Island. Guillermo del Toro’s film is quite different in that it tackles more realistic themes and skilfully plays with the viewers’ emotions. Pinocchio (2022) does not hesitate to show death, mourning, physical violence, sacrifice without forgetting the darkness of fascist Italy in the background. A more mature version of the tale that invites more reflection instead of being mere entertainment.
The historical reality of Pinocchio contrasts with its dreamlike dimension where supernatural creatures cohabit in a certain way with the humans of the village of Gepetto. Instead of the Blue Fairy, we discover two creatures straight out of the imagination of Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale, the screenwriter of the film: the Spirit of the Forest and of Death, the masked sisters who grant life and death. The whale (which is not actually a whale) also takes on a more ethereal appearance. Fantastic beings who thus integrate the bestiary of the filmmaker, who enchant as much as they intimidate.
What makes the strength of Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro is that it is a real hymn to life, where the Disney version is more a series of adventures that teach the hero to become a real little boy. If the two films stage the sacrifice of Pinocchio to save Gepetto, the version of del Toro insists more on the funereal aspect of the tale of Collodi. Indeed, to save the old carpenter, he asks the Spirit of Death to make him mortal. An ultimate sacrifice that will cost him his life, the one and only from which he benefited. Only Cricket’s wish to the Spirit of the Forest allowed Pinocchio to be resurrected. Finally, if the film from Disney studios ends happily, the director’s version of the Pan’s Labyrinth goes further, showing Pinocchio going to explore the world after the death of the other protagonists.
While both films used puppets, the Disney version instead used them to study mobility to aid in the design of storyboards. For its part, Guillermo del Toro’s film is animated in stop-motion, that is to say frame by frame, using manually operated puppets. A technical feat that required no less than 200 entirely hand-made puppets. If you are interested in the animation processes of the film, you can find all the details in a free exhibition dedicated to Pinocchio (2022) in Paris.
Virginia Incerto
Pop culture and lifestyle journalist
We wish to thank the writer of this write-up for this outstanding material
