In 2022, we’ve had two adaptations of Pinocchio that have already made their marks in “interesting” spaces (the Pauly Shore dubbed straight-to-video Russian version and Disney’s latest soulless cash-grab live-action-action remake of their iconic 1941 animated film). It would be safe to assume that we, as a culture, are worn out by the formula. Since 1883, Carlo Collodi’s novel has endured over a century through many different iterations of the wooden boy brought to life by a blue fairy, learning how to be a boy under the guardianship of Geppetto and a talking cricket serving as Pinocchio’s literal conscious. How is it that Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated feature from Netflix manages to be not only one of the best films of the year but, undoubtedly, one of the best adaptations of the classic story?

Guillermo del Toro has joined forces with stop-motion animator Mark Gustafson (who served as the Animation Director for Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,”); together, they crafted an immaculate masterwork version of Pinocchio that is less interested in evoking nostalgia and more concerned with human actions and emotions—how our time on earth is limited. Still, our impact can be more eternal than a wooden-shaped boy coming to life by a blue fairy.

Set in 1930s Italy, under the fascist regime of Mussolini, we open with voiceover narration provided by Sebastian J. Cricket (a sophisticated Ewan McGregor) introducing a tale “we may think we know, but we don’t,” as we witness an old woodcarver, Geppetto (voiced by an incredibly powerful David Bradley), putting flowers on a tombstone of his dead son, Carlo. A beautiful preamble shows a flashback to when Carlo (voiced by Gregory Man) was alive, and both he and Geppetto shared an immense and sincere love as father and son, as they capture the townsfolk with their whimsy. It’s an extended scene and one that perfectly demonstrates Geppetto’s emotional core for being a father who can provide proper guidance and warmth in a period where planes drop bombs from afar in the mountains. Sadly, Carlo is killed during one of these bomb raids in a church, leaving Geppetto in a traumatic state of shock and loss.

As time passes (shown through the growth of a pinecone, which Carlo carried, into a tree that shadows his headstone), Geppetto becomes more depressed and isolated from the world. During a drunken stormy night—as Sebastian quickly settles inside the empty tree, hoping to jumpstart his memoirs—Geppetto chops down the tree in a drunken-filled rage to bring back his boy in some physical manner. He saws, hacks, and carves, to near-perfection, a wooden version of Carlo before falling asleep. Sebastian, safe but peeved at the destruction of his new home, witnesses the iconic blue fairy (evocatively voiced by Tilda Swinton), but very much an inhuman, sphinxlike creature that only be realized by del Toro’s imagination, appears and gives the wooden boy new life to fill the void in Geppetto’s life, whom she nicknames as Pinocchio. Sebastian, feeling cheated out of his home, calls dibs on the reduced tree as his home. Blue Fairy vows to grant him one wish if he helps in assisting the child as his conscience and moral guidance (hilariously, Sebastian accepts the notion of being a famous writer). Geppetto awakes and finds his wooden puppet missing, realizing (in a horror-inspired scene) his wooden boy is real, as he springs to bubbly and vivacious life, calling out to his “Papa” and singing and dancing. Startled and surprised, Geppetto soon realizes that while he doesn’t have Carlo back, he does have a version of a child he can love and be a father too, and, perhaps, mold to be similar to Carlo.

The narrative soon follows the exciting little puppet exploring the town while Geppetto tries his best to ease the townspeople’s unease and weariness over something that is non-conforming and inhuman. Some see Pinocchio as a sign of the devil; others want to use him as props for their satisfaction—some notable characters include the Podesta (voiced by Del Toro regular, Ron Perlman) and the main villain of the film, Count Volpe (played to hammy excellence by Christoph Waltz), a greedy circus master, and his expressive monkey sidekick, Spazzatura (voiced by an uncanny Cate Blanchett)—yet unlike Carlo, Pinocchio is learning as he grows. The more he experiences, the more he realizes how much life’s glitz and riches pale compared to the fullness he can feel with being the son of a poor woodcarver. In a world where children are enlisted to service a fascist Mussolini for a merciless war and the naivete involved in being a puppet for others, del Toro illustrates the connections and empathetic ties we have with our loved ones being something that prevails even the dourness of a world on the brink of WWII.

Del Toro’s fable is very reminiscent of his prior works, most notably “Pan’s Labyrinth,” where the magical & mystical coincide with the harsh realities of humanity’s cruel practice of death. Both films contextualize the stark backdrop of fascist wartime propaganda contrasted by the childlike wonder and curiosity that reinforces an optimistic layer of beauty and immortality that outlives us. That may seem fairly grand for an animated stop-motion film, yet, that’s part of del Toro’s beauty: he knows his characters have to navigate difficult worlds, but he doesn’t let their curiosity diminish along with their surroundings.

Dying is very much literalized uniquely and creatively. For being a wooden boy, Pinocchio very much finds himself in the afterlife after a few encounters with death, in which he comes across the opposite of the Blue Fairy: her twin sister, Death, that sees the afterlife (also voiced by Swinton) who confronts Pinocchio carefree attitude that allows him to escape death but recognizes where he is immune, the people around him are susceptible, and thus, Pinocchio must acknowledge his privilege of being non-human. However, he exercises human traits. It’s a mature way of reconfiguring the Pinocchio tale in a manner that avoids the happy-go-lucky one-note Disneyfied treatment of fairy tales being accommodating to the sensibilities of children when really, death and horror are as integral to these tales as the dizzying amusement.

Don’t let the previous analysis make you avoid this film—the film is as hilarious and entertaining, one of the big feature highlights being Ewan McGregor’s work as Sebastian. This poor cricket—any effort made to steer Pinocchio or support Geppetto results in him being crunched, smashed, or tossed aside in crunchy detail that leaves the poor fella anguishing, “Oh, the pain.” McGregor is such a delight, as is the rest of the cast, particularly Bradley’s soulful work as Geppetto. All the joy and heartache are felt through Bradley’s voiceover, as his Geppetto has a lot of love and wisdom to give, yet feels he’s hit a barrier from some sadistic universe with a personal vendetta. His love for Carlo, and in tangent to Pinocchio truly shines as his tenderness never feels inauthentic. All of the voice work fits and compliments the vibrant and lively animation brought to pain-staking life by the talented mavericks at ShadowMachine and the Jim Henson company for their perfect puppeteering work and their detailed work from character designs to the colorful Italian cities and towns to even inside the mouth of a giant dogfish. Something as simple as a character unintentionally kicking a glass bottle near the bottom of the frame makes the world feel lived in and alive. The animators didn’t need to do it (with the amount of time it takes to animate a scene) yet the sheer dedication and craftsmanship are on display within every frame—nary is there a moment where one isn’t transported into Gustafson & del Toro’s world.

On top of being a well-crafted, wonderfully composited film, the score provided by Alexandra Desplat is truly captivating, as it utilizes a lot of wood-type instruments that evoke the motif of weighty wood from Pinocchio’s composition compared to the stiffness of the human bodies of the characters, making them feel tangible and real whilst exuding warmth and emotion. Their second collaboration (after “The Shape of Water”) proves to be another fruitful investment, as their sensibilities perfectly align, producing along with the catchy original songs. One of which, “Ciao Pappa” is sure to be a contender for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Del Toro, Gustafson, and every talented artist from top to bottom deliver transcendent work that only helps solidify this new adaptation of a tale that’s been recycled and regurgitated through many different mediums. The one piece of tangential Pinocchio adaptation this reminds me of is Spielberg/Kubrick’s rendition as a cyber-punk existentialist science fiction in “A.I.,” where the blueprint of Pinocchio is used to explore many morbid themes of mortality and the limitations of the human body versus a non-human vessel, yet how emotions of love and attachment can leave such an eternal ripple through time that even a live wooden boy can carry on the essence of how humans can live on eternally, even after death. Del Toro is a humanist filmmaker, and in “Pinocchio,” his character puppets carry more attributes of what it is to be human than most mainstream films released.

Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai