A dark and fantastical interpretation of the classic tale about a puppet who wants to be a real boy, reimagined during Italy’s fascist...
Certificate
Duration118 mins
Review by
Now, when you hear Pinocchio you likely think of the Disney version. Arguably, this is the most popular version, it's Disney after all. But I'd argue this should be just as popular. It takes the character of Pinocchio and puts him into a different story, and frankly, I think it's does well. By different story, I don't mean completely different in quite a number of ways it's similar to Disneys film, or atleast the details I've picked up from pop culture osmosis. I really like this film, I know this is a self contained film and I don't think a Pinocchio 2 would be a good idea but I think it would be nice if we got a spin off about Sebastian J. Cricket, he's a very nice character and his VA (one Ewan McGregor AKA Obi Wan Kenobi) lends a nice charm to the character. Now, I'm going to go on a tangent about the visual symbolism of a scene. Around 42 minutes into the film Gapetto finishes a Jesus statue he started at the film - for some context this film is set during WW2 - then a nazi and a priest walk in, the priest praises Gapetto for his carpentry while the nazi does the nazi salute and Gapetto copies accidentally throwing a paint brush at the nazi's shoe in the process, putting a splash of red paint on his shoe. This could visually symbolise the Nazis various crimes against people they arbitrarily deemed "Imperfect" e.g. Jewish people and gay people, the fact this is set in a church and that many high ranking nazi officers were raised with Christian faith, Hitler especially, might add some extra symbolism to this scene. I'll recommend this film to any interested, truly, something worthwhile to see.