What happens, happens - and then we are gone.

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2022

#19 :  Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

You’ve seen Pinocchio before – perhaps once already this year, with the Robert Zemeckis’ Disney remake – but not quite like Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio. Gorgeous stop-motion puppet work and a dedication to putting the animators’ decisions and mannerisms first immediately make it a sublime feast for the eyes. 

This is another one I'd not have bothered with under normal circumstances, but del Toro is never boring so I'm intrigued as to what he's done with it.

And, well, he's certainly done loads with it - it all gets very existential indeed.  Pinocchio is created by Gepetto to replace his son (who was killed in an bombing raid) and throughout the film he runs off to join the circus, makes friends with a monkey, performs for Mussolini, gets enlisted in the army, gets swallowed by a giant fish and repeatedly visits the underworld (which is obviously run by rabbits).  All the while, posing questions on the very nature of parenthood, friendship, fascism, sacrifice and death - and it has a VERY charming ending indeed.

It all very well told and it looks fantastic - the animation is really well done with some really subtle touches in it.  It is, however, hard to tell who they're making the film for - it must be aimed at the family market but it's not like del Toro's name is really going to help sell it there and I'm also not sure which ages of children would actually like it.  The songs are also an odd choice - it feels like they're trying to Disney-fy it, but they're very average and instantly forgettable so they give up on that idea halfway through the film - and in some cases they give up on a song a couple of lines in!

The voice acting through is pretty good - David Bradley and Gregory Mann both deserve special praise for their excellent work as Gepetto and Pinocchio.  I'm going to mention Tilda Swinton for her third "appearance" of the year - and yes, she's playing some weird characters but, to be fair, there are a lot of weird characters in this film!  I also need to mention that Mussolini is played by Tom Kenny who you probably don't recognise from the name, but he voices Spongebob Squarepants - which is quite a pair of names to have on the CV.

Wikipedia tells me this film won an Oscar, making del Toro the first filmmaker to win Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Animated Feature for different films, for The Shape of Water and Pinocchio, respectively.

I actually quite enjoyed this - it was a clever story in a clever setting and there were some real moments of tension and heart nicely scattered throughout the film.  I'm not sure I'd say it's really one of the best films of the year and my life would have been perfectly fine without seeing it, but it was a diverting two hours which I don't feel were wasted.  As I said previously though, I'm not really sure who it was aimed at so I'm not sure I really feel I can recommend it - but if you fancy it, it's there on Netflix for you.

#20 (Empire) - I don't get it
#15 - A film that polarised me, let alone the wider audience