A wooden puppet is just a lifeless toy. Or is it? Let the old craft of stop motion perform its magic, and suddenly the doll moves, dances, and – no doubt – it feels and makes you feel. Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson took the classic tale and made it into a completely different form. With help of stop motion in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, filmmakers were able to create a film miracle not just about the wooden boy, but about life and death, good and evil, real and fake. This dark and twisted interpretation is a universe of its own. Looking at it, you can’t help but ask: how did they handcraft such a cinematic look? Christoph Waltz – the voice of the cruel puppet master, Count Volpe, – says in the making-of video: “It doesn’t look like any animated movie you’ve seen before. It’s completely different.” And I tend to agree. Watching the dark fantasy when it aired on Netflix, I had mixed feelings. To start with, you forget that it’s stop motion almost immediately; it feels so smooth and fluid! You are so immersed in this created world that the line between animation and live-action blurs. In the back of your mind, you know it has to be a Guillermo del Toro film. No wonder his “Pinocchio” is in the race for “best animated feature” at this year’s Oscars. Let’s take a look behind the magic curtain and answer the question. Which ingredients were crucial to...
Published By: CineD - Tuesday, 7 March, 2023