Pinocchio - (spoiler alert)

I have recently watched Pinocchio, a movie by Guillermo del Toro and Marc Gustafson. 

I start from the good things before complaining on the ending.

The genial thing is that a movie about a puppet has been entirely shot with puppets too, all in stop motion. Pinocchio's life (as a marionette) is a show inside another show. 

The animation and soundtrack are wonderful, the puppets are a piece of craft each of them, especially Pinocchio itself which is the only one made with a 3d printer, in metal, in order to look different: to look more as a puppet than the rest of characters.

The way Italy is represented during Fascism would be worthy a free cinema ticket to be sent to the current Italian prime minister ( a dwarf-Mussolini is only mumbling a few words with a child-like voice....).

Guillermo del Toro in the QA explains how the novel Pinocchio has been written by a mystic Catholic, and it's full of references about alchemy and the meaning of Life. So he must be very aware of that, and if I spotted well towards the end Pinocchio is holding a book of "Alchemy", not by chance.

Despite so, I think the movie has intentionally changed the meaning of the original story in a drastic way, and makes me wonder why. Here comes my concern.

In the movie Pinocchio is unable to die, every time he seems to die, he actually goes in the other world, in a sort of waiting list for being shortly reborn again. Until one point in which, in order to save his father's life, he has to get rid of his immortality and become mortal, as they say only mortality proves the value of a life. 

However after sacrificing his life for saving his dad from drowning, the Fairy with Turquoise Hair rewards him with same spirit and (eternal) life again, still in the same shape of a wooden marionette. As he can live forever the movie ends with Pinocchio seeing his father Geppetto, Sebastian the Talking Cricket, and all the others, die and will eternally remember them... Pretty sad in my opinion. 

Now I think this is critical and not just a detail.

 First of all this immortal spirited puppet (at the beginning is said that Pinocchio has a borrowed soul) reminds more of an Artificial Intelligence, able to learn through the contact with humans, but unable to die, so it's meant to survive to them. Scary.

Second, the movie contradicts itself: they first state life is valuable because of his finiteness...but this is a "grace" not granted to Pinocchio, when he comes to life once again at the end of the movie.

Third and most important: in the original story Pinocchio becomes a real child. That's something we were expecting and it doesn't happen in the movie, leaving us without the dopamine (spiritual, cathartic) peak.

The whole climax of inner transformation should culminate into the appearance of  real child in flesh and bones. This is not just a detail in Collodi's tale, considering that the act of breathing in itself is central to life/spirit. I see the original story of Pinocchio as a tale on the build-up of a morality and discipline, in order to improve a human existence. All of us are merely marionettes until we make the necessary steps to avoid life's traps and to develop emotional intelligence and responsibility.

As a Christian, Collodi probably thinks that this capacity resides also in the specific biological properties of the human body, which has been proven as "suitable to be resurrected" by Jesus. Resurrection doesn't involve wood, neither spirit only, but bodies, with neurons, veins and so on.

The fact for example that only us, among the whole animal reign, speak, is relevant and highlighted by the powerful use of the word (which in fact dramatically effects  Pinocchio's nose whenever he lies).

Collodi probably wanted us guess that Pinocchio-as-a-child will eventually die as everyone. The finiteness of life, stimulates the responsibility and give closure, meaning, to a life-story. Not only is not a problem for a Christian to die, but according to the scriptures it's important to not live avoiding death. A Christian would be concerned about the idea of death separated from the idea of life (as it happens more on these days, where many are desperately trying to convince themselves that we have outsmarted it – with enough money or enough technology maybe).

So the missing part of the transformation of Pinocchio into a child, I think is a big betrayal of Pinocchio original message, in such a deep level that makes me question why Guillermo Del Toro has chosen this story instead of writing a completely new one.

The risk in re-writing a story with so many changes, is to make the original one to be forgotten. As Guy Debord brilliantly said, this is also the implicit risk every time a quote is made out of its original context.

Along with the (upsetting) ending, there's also the fact that in the movie Geppetto is drunk when he makes Pinocchio - again this is not in the original story. Geppetto had neither lost himself in addiction nor carved Pinocchio while there is a thunderstorm (like we see in the movie). This is not Frankenstein, made out of hubris. It's a story which overcomes grief.

It was meant to be a story about the soft qualities of the soul, about mourning, hope, miracles, growth, and real transformation.

The feeling by watching this movie is that this new-Pinocchio has failed to become material&spiritual, and he can only be a Spectacle. He cannot give us much more hope of redemption as it was and stays until the end a puppet.

P.S. the virtual soul has partially been funded by Netflix.

P.P.S. despite the criticism to the ending/meaning of the movie, it is still a masterwork of Puppetry Animation and beauty, and very enjoyable.

P.P.S. Guillermo del Toro is highly funny and probably huggable too.