Film Review — Pinocchio
Guillermo Del Toro’s subversive stop-motion take on Carlo Collodi’s oft-adapted novel is a personal triumph
I finally got around to seeing Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. What took me so long? I wanted to see it in the cinema, as watching a film by Del Toro for the first time on streaming is anathema to me. Unfortunately, UK screenings have been limited, but my patience paid off and I got the chance to see the film properly at the rather wonderful Barn cinema Dartington, a local independent here in southwest England.
A long-gestating labour of love for Del Toro, this stop-motion adaptation is simply sublime. You might not think you need another version of Pinocchio given the various takes scattered throughout cinema history. These include Disney’s famous animated version from 1940, Robert Zemeckis’s pointless live-action remake of the Disney animation from earlier this year, Steven Spielberg/Stanley Kubrick’s masterful sci-fi spin on the tale: AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), and Matteo Garone’s 2019 adaptation, for which I have a soft spot. However, trust me when I say Del Toro’s version more than justifies its existence. It might just be one of my top films of the year.
The Del Toro stamp is evident from the opening image, a pan down from a pine cone revealing a grieving…
