Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: What are the differences between the movie and the original story?

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is known for his meticulous craft. Films such as ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ and ‘The Shape of Water’ cemented him as one of the most exciting directors working in cinema, creating intricate worlds full of creative creatures with spell-binding stories.

When news was announced way back in 2014 that the director was working on an adaptation of Pinocchio many fans of his work were excited. Though it spent a long time being developed, the film was finally released at the end of 2022.

‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’ was very well received. The film won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film as well as at the Golden Globes. It is in the running for the same award in the upcoming Oscars this weekend.

Viewers of the movie will be struck by its many and varied differences compared to the original text or the classic Disney film from 1940. The adaptations made by del Toro are epitomised in an interview he gave to Vanity Fair.

“I’ve always been very intrigued by the links between Pinocchio and Frankenstein,” del Toro said. “They are both about a child that is thrown into the world. They are both created by a father who then expects them to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, the ethics, the morals, love, life, and essentials, on their own. I think that was, for me, childhood. You had to figure it out with your very limited experience.”

Coupling this aspect with other motifs common in del Toro films makes a unique adaptation that has been thrilling audiences and critics.

The del Toro spice that courses through Pinocchio

In the original Carlo Collodi text from the 1880s it is only through obedience and learning of rules that Pinocchio learns the qualities to become human. The puppet is punished and reborn after each of his ‘errors’, eventually learning that through following the rules it can fit in with the rest of society.

But del Toro did not want the same fate for his character. Instead of the emphasis on obedience, del Toro celebrates how making mistakes and expressing ourselves as individuals is what really makes us human.

The theme of obedience is put to the test in the setting of del Toro’s work. If one is to take obedience or some deference to authority to its zenith then we approach authoritarianism and fascism. This is exactly the link del Toro makes in his film, keeping the setting in its original location of Italy but moving the time 60 years forwards. No longer is the setting risorgiomento Italy, but fascist Italy of the 1940s.

To be obedient is to follow the rules of the fascist state. Del Toro turns the moral from one of the neccesity of obedience into one of disobedience; fighting against structures and revelling in non-conformity are virtues to be celebrated. In one scene Pinocchio is executed after disrespecting dictator Benito Mussolini in a puppet show.

Del Toro explained this decision in an interview with British magazine Big issue.

“The kinds of Pinocchio that I was exposed to as a child [were] the [Carlo] Collodi and the Disney versions. They were very scary for me... I understood that I had to do what I was told, and I didn’t like it.”

It is not del Toro’s first reference to fascism in his films. 2006′s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ was set in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict which resulted in the defeat of the democratic government and the imposition of right-wing dictatorship. This exploration of opposition to rules and expectations are key components of the filmmaker’s special style.