Directed by: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson
Won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.
Streaming on Netflix.
It's a stop-motion, animated film. This film has a fairy-tale-like narrative and storytelling. Fairy tale narratives being larger than life and epic and telling such a story through stop-motion animation - with inanimate objects - brings a beautiful sense of smallness and intimacy to the storytelling. The film opens with a terrific prologue - where a father loses his son in the war - the style of the prologue seems to be influenced by the opening of Pixar's Up. After the father loses the son, he gets depressed and he does countless prayers and keeps wishing his son comes back. Now, this is a point where we as the audience are rooting so badly for the father that we are ready to see even magic help this man. I'd call this point - a fantastical low point - which would lead us to hope even magic help the characters. I believe that this fantastical low point is the key to any good fantasy film. In Harry Potter - Harry's uncle not treating Harry well and burning all of Harry's letters is that fantastical low point. In Eega - Nani being unfairly killed for no mistake of his is that fantastical low point. Now, I was super excited after this fantastical low point - I was hoping that the son would be reincarnated into the puppet he makes. Although the film takes a slightly different turn.
The film beautifully explores so many intense themes - it explores grief and the processing of it. Pinocchio symbolizes another child one has after losing one, a spouse from a remarriage and the film explores how tough it is for someone to not keep looking for the lost loved ones in the new person that has come into their life. And it is too harsh on the new person - in this case, a kid. The film talks about acceptance and getting past the expectations parents have on their kids. Though the film talks about all these in moments, a few things didn't work for me. One was how there is reincarnation possible for Pinocchio in the film - it just takes away the promised intensity of the stakes. Also, it caters to the tropes of an animated film to an extent - the physical comedy and chaos - some of it which I enjoyed. Overall, I really enjoyed seeing the film for how intimate and epic it was at the same time.
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