Not Lyin’: Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” could be a classic in the making
“Imagine having that imagination, that visual vocabulary, and that astonishing body of work.” Taylor Swift on Guillermo Del Toro Taylor’s not wrong. Guillermo is truly one of cinema’s great visionaries and all around fabulists, which is why his “Pinocchio” works so well. It is a fine pairing, Collodi’s puppet who would be a real, living boy and what del Toro does with the tale is both timeless and timely. Geppetto (voiced by Atticus Filch himself, David Bradley) is a man bereft; his son Carlo (perhaps a nod to Collodi) was killed by a stray bomb during World War One, and the old man has turned to drink, leaving unfinished a crucifixion to be restored in the bombing’s wake, and in general, turning in on himself. At one point, he begins carving a puppet in memory of Carlo and far too hammered, puts off the refinements until the next day. Little does he know that a Wood Sprite has been led to the old man’s studio and wishing to relieve him of his pain, imbues the puppet with the ...