The perfect film to celebrate Guillermo del Toro’s 60th birthday
Guillermo del Toro turns 60 today. In fact, on 9 October 1964, a child was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, who would become, once he grew up, one of the most iconic directors in the history of international cinema. A visionary, lover of fantasy in all its forms and with an always dreamy, childish, magical vision of cinema and the world. But which film by Guillermo del Toro best embodies his poetics? His successes on the big screen are many, including Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, Hellboy, and his serial products such as Cabinet of Curiosities, the Netflix horror anthology series that won over the public with horror stories each more interesting than the other.
There is, however, a film that is able to show all of Del Toro’s sensitivity, all of his artistic flair, his enormous ability to look at life with different eyes, bring out the soul of the characters on the screen and get straight to people’s hearts. This film is the one that, in 2023, gave him the Oscar which made him the only person in history to have obtained this highly coveted recognition for the three different categories: best film, best director and best animated film. Let’s talk about Pinocchio.
Guillermo del Toro has a great gift, that of telling stories with a very recognizable style, authentic and faithful to his personality and vision of the world. Every time he picks up a story, whether it is the fruit of his creativity or a classic of classics to revisit, he has the power to be able to respect its essence, give it a very strong characterization and never be afraid to make it personal and universal at the same time. time. This is precisely what happens with Pinocchio, the great classic of Italian literature, born from the pen of Carlo Collodi in 1883 which Del Toro took first hand, accompanied and directed into a modern and renewed version of himself.
Pinocchio is a stop-motion film from which all the respect of the Oscar-winning director for the original story shines through but also the courage to change a classic to give it a new light and a different interpretation, all without distorting or denying the original.
Every character put on the screen, from those faithful to the book to those created by Del Toro himself, is so well thought out and characterized that they fit perfectly into the story and have a key role for the viewer, even where they play a secondary part in the story. Everyone, from the talking cricket to Lucignolo, from the little monkey Spazzatura to Conte Volpe, up to Lucifer’s father, the podestà, Benito Mussolini and the wonderful double version of the blue fairy, has an expressive power and an emotional charge so strong that it can to strike, excite and embed itself in the memory of anyone who has seen the film.
The history of Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro flows smoothly, without being excessive or redundant, without reiterating the obvious, it evolves together with its characters and gives each of them space to move between many themes. We talk about religion and how it is less difficult to believe in the existence of an invisible God rather than believing in someone who does not externally reflect certain standards, we talk about the fear of someone who is different just because we don’t know him, about love paternal and that of a child for their parents. We talk about the beauty of life in its short and elusive nature, the importance of time and opportunities not to be wasted. The theme of war is addressed, that of virility, the fear of showing oneself fragile and of admitting that, in the end, one is afraid of dying, as well as of living. We talk about friendship, stubbornness, money, mistakes, lies.
Guillermo del Toro manages to teach, through excellent dialogues, not only to children but above all to adults why it is worth living and even dying and with a story from other times, a paternal manner and boundless wisdom almost gives us a pat on the back and invites us to be ourselves to the fullest, write our own destiny and seize the moment by fully enjoying this wonderful, irrational, exciting and incredible journey that is life.