Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

The man who gave us Pan's Labyrinth has taken some fantastical elements that he wowed us with there and made this amazing version of a well known story--there have been 2 Pinocchio's in the last couple of years, so if you were hazy on the details, you could have caught up. Del Toro's lifelong commitment to turning the figments of his imagination into physical realities makes his decision to opt for stop-motion for his first animated feature an obvious one--it is well suited to the awkwardness of a wooden boy as well. Glorious in its tactile fabrication, this epitomizes the melding of tale and technique into a cohesive philosophical unit. For a story about imperfect fathers and sons, this method capitalizes on the irreplicable quality of the human touch one frame at a time. Decidedly more mature in tone than previous animated iterations of Carlo Collodi's 19th-century fable, though no less stirring or disarming, this version transports the characters first just a few years ahead of the original story into the future to the early 1900s, as the Great War ravages Europe. This gives a platform from which to comment on fascism, something that iyou would hope we had moved beyond, but which keeps rearing it's ugly head. Pinocchio's personality emerges over the course of the film and is my favorite of the versions that I have seen. Del Toro is a gentle champion of the misunderstood to those whose appearance, origin, or worldview isolate them from the homogeneity of the masses. In this wooden boy, he finds a walking and talking symbol for the indomitable power of nature, of chance, of the unpredictable factors that can enrich our days even if they weren't precisely what we had hoped for. Even if you think you have seen enough of the wooden boy who comes to life, you really shouldn't miss this one.