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Review: del Toro's “Pinocchio” (2022)
Mar. 7th, 2023 10:55 amKaty and I watched the del Toro “Pinocchio” (2022), and I can see why, despite the hype, I didn’t hear a lot about this movie after it came out. Sure, the stop motion is great. No qualms there! The pacing, however, is awkward, and the songs could be better. Some plot elements don’t quite make sense. The evil circus master who wants to use Pinocchio to make money already has a monkey with what seems to be a fully human level of intelligence, as well as considerable dexterity and capability. The ringmaster doesn’t capitalise on this obvious star attraction at all. He simply treats the monkey like shit, going after the bird in the bush. Okay? The father’s love for Pinocchio is also a vital plot driving mechanism, but the shape of the story ensures that by the time they're separated, Gepetto and Pinocchio have spent about two days together (during which they only got along a bit). The weight is off, there.
Also the story is very About Fascism now, and I’m not sure that decision actually yields the production much more than a muddled gravitas. The mixture of tones is jarring. (Why does a range of tones work in Dickens when it so rarely does elsewhere? Perhaps it’s down to the length of serial novels and Dickens’ commitment to their various moods at given moments.) Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” is scatological in a way that might appeal to small children, but then it turns to make jokes about Mussolini. Then, Pinocchio’s friend’s fash dad gets blown up by a plane. Basically, it’s hard to imagine this project’s intended audience. Maybe you can try a few ‘one for the dads’ gestures, but children still have to be engaged by poo jokes, then sit through the reheated Mussolini material, and then not get freaked out by a child’s father being blown up (in a fairly weighted fashion: this isn’t “Looney Tunes”). The story closes with a final word on the nature of mortality, just to round off the poo jokes, I guess. (And for some reason the cricket enjoys a special afterlife unique to himself, where he finally gets to do his song. Mazels.)
I was somehow unsurprised to learn that this was partly written by the “Over the Garden Wall” guy. You know I like “Over the Garden Wall”, but in this project Patrick McHale and del Toro’s sensibilities don’t entirely mesh. The stiltedness of “Pinocchio”’s plotting and dialogue make a lot of sense to me in terms of McHale, and reveal something interesting about pop-cultural time. I’d say that in 2015, McHale’s particular rhythm worked, and that it isn’t working here and now. Too much has happened, the mood of the room has changed. It reminded me of trying to watch the “Bee and Puppy Cat” show that finally got made. What had been fresh and engaging when I was in university now feels dull and off, a thousand years old and miles away.
Del Toro is an occasionally fabulous but very uneven director. Many of the risks he takes don’t pay off, and many of his projects don’t, ultimately, cohere. Praise of his oeuvre that misses this feels inattentive. “Pinocchio” is sort of in the room with his “Hellboy”, in that everything is delivered like Indiana Jones’ saying ‘part time’ in “Crystal Skull” (a lazily-used bad take made infamous by RLM).
Me, midway through the fascist summer camp arc: Whatever happened to that monkey?
Katy, flatly: He probably burned to death.
Also the story is very About Fascism now, and I’m not sure that decision actually yields the production much more than a muddled gravitas. The mixture of tones is jarring. (Why does a range of tones work in Dickens when it so rarely does elsewhere? Perhaps it’s down to the length of serial novels and Dickens’ commitment to their various moods at given moments.) Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” is scatological in a way that might appeal to small children, but then it turns to make jokes about Mussolini. Then, Pinocchio’s friend’s fash dad gets blown up by a plane. Basically, it’s hard to imagine this project’s intended audience. Maybe you can try a few ‘one for the dads’ gestures, but children still have to be engaged by poo jokes, then sit through the reheated Mussolini material, and then not get freaked out by a child’s father being blown up (in a fairly weighted fashion: this isn’t “Looney Tunes”). The story closes with a final word on the nature of mortality, just to round off the poo jokes, I guess. (And for some reason the cricket enjoys a special afterlife unique to himself, where he finally gets to do his song. Mazels.)
I was somehow unsurprised to learn that this was partly written by the “Over the Garden Wall” guy. You know I like “Over the Garden Wall”, but in this project Patrick McHale and del Toro’s sensibilities don’t entirely mesh. The stiltedness of “Pinocchio”’s plotting and dialogue make a lot of sense to me in terms of McHale, and reveal something interesting about pop-cultural time. I’d say that in 2015, McHale’s particular rhythm worked, and that it isn’t working here and now. Too much has happened, the mood of the room has changed. It reminded me of trying to watch the “Bee and Puppy Cat” show that finally got made. What had been fresh and engaging when I was in university now feels dull and off, a thousand years old and miles away.
Del Toro is an occasionally fabulous but very uneven director. Many of the risks he takes don’t pay off, and many of his projects don’t, ultimately, cohere. Praise of his oeuvre that misses this feels inattentive. “Pinocchio” is sort of in the room with his “Hellboy”, in that everything is delivered like Indiana Jones’ saying ‘part time’ in “Crystal Skull” (a lazily-used bad take made infamous by RLM).
Me, midway through the fascist summer camp arc: Whatever happened to that monkey?
Katy, flatly: He probably burned to death.
