Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: Handcarved Cinema 2022

In Italy, Geppetto the woodcarver loses his son Carlo to an aerial bombardment during World War I. Twenty years later, he carves a puppet from the pine planted over Carlo’s grave, and Wood Sprite breathes life into the figure, naming him Pinocchio because the puppet is carved from pine. The sprite assigns Sebastian J. Cricket to guide him morally, promising a wish in return. What follows is a long, winding journey of growth, temptation, and the slow carving away of naivety as Pinocchio learns the weight of choices and the consequences of his actions.

Geppetto awakens to Pinocchio’s curious exploration and the mischief of a living wooden boy, which frightens and frustrates him at once. He decides Pinocchio should go to school and offers him a schoolbook that once belonged to Carlo, hoping to impart discipline and memory. Yet the road to maturity is rarely simple, and Pinocchio’s day-to-day misadventures pull him toward a world of entertainment and profit that stands in sharp contrast to his father’s wishes.

On the way to school, Pinocchio is intercepted by Count Volpe and his monkey Spazzatura, who drag him to their circus to perform. Geppetto arrives to take him back, and the ensuing confrontation ends with Pinocchio being fatally struck by the Podestà’s truck. In the afterlife, Death explains that Pinocchio is immortal and will revive whenever an hourglass empties, warning that each death will extend his stay in the realm beyond life. This revelation steels Pinocchio for the trials ahead and colors his choices with a new sense of consequence.

After his revival, an army officer informs Geppetto that Pinocchio’s immortality could become a tool for conscription, and laws compel him toward youth camps. Pinocchio, sensing Geppetto’s sorrow, decides to earn money by performing in the circus, hoping to support his father while avoiding enlistment. Meanwhile, Spazzatura grows jealous of Volpe’s control, and Pinocchio becomes entangled in a tension that culminates when he disrupts Mussolini’s presence with a song, an act that leads to a harsh retaliation: Mussolini orders his execution and the circus is burned to the ground.

Reborn once more, Pinocchio is dragged into military recruit training, where he befriends Candlewick, the Podestà’s mistreated son. In a tense training game, Pinocchio and Candlewick tie, provoking their father to order Candlewick to shoot him. Candlewick refuses, and the camp’s fragile order unravels as Allied bombers darken the sky, killing the Podestà and scattering the boys. Pinocchio’s resilience is tested anew as he is captured by Volpe, who seeks to destroy him. Spazzatura rescues Pinocchio, and the two plunge from a seaside cliff, their fates intertwined with the sea’s vastness.

Lost at sea, Pinocchio and Spazzatura are swallowed by the Terrible Dogfish. Inside, Geppetto and Sebastian are also found, and a daring escape unfolds when Sebastian realizes they can climb out of the creature’s blowhole. Pinocchio uses a cunning ruse to make his nose grow into a sturdy bridge, enabling the group to escape once more, but the dogfish returns and Pinocchio sacrifices himself by detonating a naval mine inside the beast. He dies, returning to Death, who again testifies to the cost of mortality, but Pinocchio asks to return earlier to save Geppetto. Understanding the price of becoming mortal, he breaks the hourglass to resurrect himself and live a mortal life with his father.

The Wood Sprite reappears to witness this turn of events, and Geppetto, Sebastian, and Spazzatura use their wish to revive Pinocchio. The family returns home to live together, strengthened by shared loss and renewed purpose. As the years stretch ahead, Pinocchio outlives them all in turn, and with that heavy truth in mind, he chooses to travel the world in search of his own place and identity, a journey that marks the beginning of a broader, more human existence.