Matteo Garrone
Pinocchio

The substance from which cinema is made. It transforms when you put a classic like Pinocchio in the hands of a master like Garrone.

The vision transforms, becoming more realistic and more monstrous, more fairy-tale-like and more tangible. The eyes transform, the gazes, even the buttons on the shirts seem more real and significant.

Garrone changes nothing of the classic, because as such it doesn't need to be updated, it is always current. Yet he changes everything, makes it his own and reads it with his eyes, which then become ours in the theater.

And so the tale of a child who doesn't want to grow up becomes a tale of misery, of the struggle to lead a righteous life. A bitter smile on existence, littered as it is with traps. All matter present in the book itself, but perhaps veiled by the desire of masters and storytellers to emphasize the lesson, to highlight only one side of the characters and events.

A tale that breathes life into a world made of selfishness, that of a shopkeeper selling primers, of a puppeteer who burns puppets to roast his pig on a spit. A tale about the self-satisfied pedantry of teachers who almost revel in the unavoidable mistakes of students. A tale that sanctions Pinocchio's naiveties but inserts them into a context full of petty, conniving, irresponsible, weak adults.

Lucignolo is a little rascal, but has pure eyes. More serious is the fault of the one who takes him to the land of toys, only to turn him into merchandise in the form of a donkey. And it's no coincidence he's called the "butter man." And what about the meanness of the circus owner, who sees everyone as merely an object to be exploited?

Geppetto is no exception. His misery is a plain consequence of his lack of ambition, preferring to live in the belly of the dogfish rather than risk attempting to escape. Pinocchio gets almost everything wrong, but learns quickly from his mistakes. Instead, the adults around him wallow in error, shaping their existence from it rather than attempting to change.

The film is eye candy. Garrone has searched (and with difficulty found) unspoiled landscapes and villages, to give his realist breath to the story now plastified by endless reinterpretations. In the first five minutes, he makes it new, makes it his own. And so you watch, captivated by every detail, the rumpled tank tops, the shabby houses, the wooden and grimy faces. You look and wonder where the magical mystery of cinema lies. Why such exhibited poverty attracts you so much.

Then the stakes rise, and the fantastical bursts in. A breathtaking gallery, from the wonderful cat and fox of Ceccherini and Papaleo, to the fairy, the talking cricket, up to the almost horror-like tuna that moves you in the finale. The voices are as wonderful as the visions. It is a tangible and concrete fantasy, heavily physical and present, because it is a simple image of reality. Childlike symbol.

The pacing seems classic, almost didactic. But in the interstices between one line and the next, which rigorously pursue the original script, there is space for so much cinematic wisdom, for so much unspoken, yet almost shouted.

Never have I felt so nurtured by the maternal love of the Blue Fairy. Never have I had such respect and compassion for the somewhat vain and pathetic efforts of an inept father like Geppetto. But it's no accident. It is the invisible language of cinema that embraces the viewer, guides him, holds him tight. The simple words, the dialectal intonation of Benigni, the glares of Ceccherini. His greasy hair and black hands.

Everything resonates with truth, a cinema that envelops you and makes you its own, whispering in your ear a language that almost only Garrone knows in Italy. A language where a decrepit house is a place of the soul, where a flowery meadow is a music, where a languid eye is a monologue.

Don't believe those who say it's a mere reformation; they are the ones who don't hear that little voice.