GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 11

It feels as though the theme of this year’s  BFI London Film Festival is coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Maybe with a side order of humanity versus religio-fascism. If you don’t believe me, remember this is the second film I’ve watched in the last twenty- four hours that takes a children’s story and recasts it with added violence in the midst of early twentieth century European fascism. The result is a film that is strangely full of childish enthusiasm and hope but that does not shy away from the reality of mortality, death and war. Del Toro was straightforward about its agenda when he introduced the film at today’s world premiere: it’s a film about disobedience as a virtue. And as Christoph Waltz said, there’s something worthwhile in a film about a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy, at a time when humans are being made into puppets. 

The film is depicted with the most beautifully rendered stop-motion animation that has texture and vivid colours and the most wondrous attention to detail. Our narrator is Sebastian J Cricket - never referred to with his pejorative nickname. He’s voiced by Ewan MacGregor as a rather vain but ultimately lovely little insect, and he provides much of the comedy of the film. 

We are treated to a prolonged prologue that tells us about the beloved son that Gepetto (David Bradley) lost, and after whom he fashions Pinocchio. One of the themes of the film is that one should never have to change to be loved. The narrative journey of Gepetto is that he has to learn Pinocchio for himself rather than trying to make him a good little Carlo. 

The world around our trio is one of Italy falling into fascism under Mussolini. And we have a lot of fun with innocent Pinocchio mocking "Il Dolce" and inspiring others to disobey laws that are unjust. Gregory Mann gives a sensational voice performance as the puppet - full of energy and fun and heart.  In one of the most moving scenes of the film, Pinocchio passes on the advice given to him by Sebastian - that fathers may say mean things when they fall into despair, but they don’t mean it. As in all totalitarian societies, there is no room for the personal in this Italy and poor little Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard) struggles to be the son his Fascist father wants him to be. 

As with Pixar’s SOUL there’s a fair amount of time spent in the afterlife, or underworld or whatever you’d like to call it. And this is a subtly radical world insofar as it shows that the Catholic Church is quiescent to fascism. The imperative to obey moves easily from Church to State in this film as in UNICORN WARS - also playing in this year's festival. But in Del Toro’s universe it’s the spirits of nature that have real power, and it’s a pagan elemental world that we’re living in. This is depicted in the guise of two feminine powers, both voiced by Tilda Swinto..

So the subject matter is grown-up but as with all the best childrens' films it will appeal to the adults and to the children, who have always been aware of the horrors of this world. As Del Toro said in his introduction, this is fine for children to watch, so long as their parents talk to them about it afterwards.

GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO has a running time of 113 minutes. The world premiere is at the BFI London Film Festival 2022. It will be released on December 9th.

PACIFIC RIM

You can listen to the podcast review of PACIFIC RIM directly here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.  For a more. extended discussion of the movie with two guys who actually know something about mecha anime head to the Vassals of Kingsgrave

Sea monsters versus robots? No thanks. A cross-dimensional portal has opened up in the pacific allowing big fact Kaiju beasties to plunder San Francisco and Tokyo, and humans have created big dual-piloted mega-machines called Jaegers to fight them? Puh-lease!  At least, until I heard this flick was being directed by Guillermo del Toro - of PAN'S LABYRINTH and HELLBOY fame.  That guy has such an intelligent, humorous, inventive take on fantasy that I couldn't help but be intrigued.  And he has driven this movie to a higher level. The CGI rendering of the massive cylon-style robots is amazing, and leagues beyond anything in TRANSFORMERS, and the action sequences played mostly at night and in driving rain are stunning....until they become boring.  

Where we see del Toro really at his finest is in his inventive rendering of black market Hong Kong - full of all the awe and wonder of the Hellboy hidden market, and presided over by a majestic Ron Perlmen as black marketeer, Mr Chau. Here we get a taste of geek fanboy Toro, as embodied by Charlie Day as the "kaiju groupie" researcher tasked with getting a monster brain. He's the kind of guy who says he can't tell you the secret because it's classified and the proceeds to tell you anyways, because it's so unbelievably cool! Sadly, it's all too brief. 

In fact, it's sad to say that the comic relief side-kick characters are far more interesting than the rather bland, buff protagonists.  Our hero Raleigh is played by Charlie Hunnam as a caring pretty boy with a dodgy American accent.  He's almost as unremarkable as Robert Kazinsky as his douchey pretty boy antagonist with a dodgy Australian accent. When the Jaeger pilots get into a punch up over a girl it's like you've transgressed to 1980s teen action flicks like KARATE KID and TOP GUN and not in a good way.  To be fair, the female lead, a girl called Mako played by Rinki Kikuchi (BABEL), is more interesting insofar as del Toro doesn't ask her to get her kit off and she can clearly handle herself.  That doesn't stop all the male characters infantilising her though, although at least Stacker Pentecost (the majestic Idris Elba) has the excuse that it's part of their character arc.

All of which speaks to the touchy feel hippie politics at the heart of this movie.  When the alien beasties attack, mankind defeats them by coming together and working together and helping each other through our angst. Awww!  Still, it makes a really nice change from all that dark, angsty Christopher Nolan emo stuff that weighed down MAN OF STEEL it's probably plunged to the bottom of PACIFIC RIM along with del Toro's sense of credible dialogue.  Really the only reason to see this film is Idris Elba who is so stupendously badass that he actually lives up to his ridiculous character name.  If the aliens ever come, I'm going to call Idris to lead a rag-tag band of rebels against it.  If they even tug on his jacket, he's going to nail them to the wall. 

PACIFIC RIM is on global release. It has a running time of 131 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA and 12A in the UK.