Pinocchio by Guillermo Del Toro: the visionary Mexican director brings to the big and small screen, thanks to Netflix, a bold version of the most famous wooden puppet in the world, innovated both in content and style thanks to the stop-motion of the genius of the genre, Mark Gustavson.
The celebrated The Adventures of Pinocchio. Story of a puppet from Charles Collodi is undoubtedly the fairy tale with the most transpositions in the history of world cinematography. A popularity that often amazes those who see it as a simple children’s book and are unaware of the richness and depth of the symbols that the tale itself carries and that have struck the unconscious of readers/viewers from all over the world.
What works in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
One of the most interesting interpretations of the tale is certainly the one developed by the writer Igor Sibaldi (Pinocchio and the Kabbalah – Soul Editions) which places Pinocchio as one of the most important works of initiatory literature, having caught in it the presence of numerous cabalistic symbols, of transformative alchemy and coming from the apocryphal gospels. Symbols that refer to the classic archetypal elements found in mythologies from all over the world, in fantasy literature and in initiatory tales of all time (see in this regard The Hero’s Journey. The structure of the myth for use by fiction and cinema writers from Christopher Vogler).
Just to give an example, some have noticed in Pinocchio the presence of a carpenter father by the name of Geppetto (or Joseph) which cannot fail to bring to mind another famous carpenter father with the same name; it is no coincidence that the Christological figure is strongly present in the Pinocchio by Guillermo Del Toroso much to put the puppet in one of the scenes of the film even on the cross.
Another classically esoteric element is the passage of Pinocchio inside the whale in which he finds his father, a passage that cannot fail to bring to mind the story of Jonah and the Whale of biblical memory and whose structure brings to mind one of the phases of transformative alchemy.
So far from being a moralistic story to convince the little ones to behave well, as it has been painted for a long time, Pinocchio represents one of the richest narratives of initiatory and spiritual elements of world literature. The cult director Guillermo Del Torowell aware of its explosive characteristic hidden in the guise of a children’s story, fully embraces its intrinsic esoteric nature, however deconstructing many of its classic elements and inserting others.
This Pinocchio in fact it maintains its symbolic representation of the human soul which experiences the painful materiality on earth (the poor Jiminy Cricket suffers the violent impact of materiality many times and frequently complains of the terrible pain that accompanies it) but also experiences death and reincarnation experiencing many different lives (from star of the show to young table) as a tool of knowledge that allows him to refine his experience from time to time.
A human experience that juggles temptations of all kinds but also sacrifices of its identity to adapt to the predominant culture, to gradually arrive at the only great law that moves the sun and the other stars which is that of love.
Why not watch Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
This new transposition has deeply moved us and we can’t fail to warmly recommend the vision for this Christmas for adults and children, with the only caveat that it will probably displease purists who will undoubtedly find a large number of elements deviating from the original structure.
The Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro is out in Italian cinemas on December 4th and on platform Netflix from the December 9, 2022.
Director: Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson With: Gregory Mann, David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Ron Perlman, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman Year: 2022 Duration: 117 min Country: France, USA Distribution: Netflix
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Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – Netflix Movie Review – Daruma View