Pinocchio: Enchanting chip off a magical block

Pinocchio (2019) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for disturbing images and fantasy peril

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.7.21

Disney has a lot to answer for.

 

Any knowledge of Pinocchio that American viewers possess is based entirely on Uncle Walt’s 1940 animated version, which — while admittedly a family-friendly classic —  took serious liberties with Italian author Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel (a book which, alas, I’m sure very few members of the previous several generations have read).

 

Much to the amusement of the Blue Fairy (Alida Baldari Calabria), every lie told by
Pinocchio (Federico Ielapi) — each one a desperate attempt to undo a previous fib —
makes his nose grow even longer.

Granted, Disney’s writers retained the essential plot beats, but the major shift concerns tone and atmosphere; 1940’s Pinocchio is a cheerful, song-laden frolic, which is wholly at odds with the darker, moodier and subtly subversive elements of Collodi’s novel.

 

Director/co-scripter Matteo Garrone’s new live-action adaptation is much closer to its source. That’s merely one (massive) point in its favor; Garrone’s film also is gorgeously lensed by cinematographer Nicolai Brüel, and further blessed with truly astonishing work by makeup artist Dalia Colli, prosthetic makeup designer Mark Coulier, and hair designer Francesco Pegoretti.

 

The latter trio absolutely deserve their Academy Award nomination, and — if they don’t win — there is no justice in the world.

 

It’s almost impossible to distinguish where human characters yield to animals and puppet work; the blend is flawless. And breathtaking.

 

Don’t for a moment assume that their cinematic magic solely concerns the stringless wooden puppet carved by Geppetto (Roberto Benigni) from a magical chunk of wood. This saga is laden with all manner of human-size creatures: a canine coachman resplendent in regal white; a quartet of grim, black-clad rabbit undertakers; a brooding, cranky gorilla judge; bickering owl and crow doctors; and a green-skinned grasshopper.

 

And a snail. With a massive shell, and a tendency to leave a truly disgusting trail of slime in her wake.

 

Garrone and his makeup team painstakingly based all these individuals on Enrico Mazzanti’s illustrations in Collodi’s book, and the accuracy is stunning. The result is a film that displays a dazzling sense of wonder: movie magic in the true sense of the term.

 

To be sure, the story focuses on — and is driven by — 9-year-old Federico Ielapi’s performance as the title character, his dazzling, oak-grained makeup meticulous applied by hand. As Pinocchio’s saga proceeds, his face and limbs begin to look worn, even chipped in spots. Indeed, we tend to forget that he is being played by a human boy, so persuasive is his (deliberately) clumsy and lopsided movements, as if he’s never quite able to manage limbs joined by pins at knees, elbows and shoulders.

 

With very few exceptions, most of what we watch is produced “in camera,” as opposed to CGI trickery. That’s also quite impressive, particularly these days.

To Rome with Love: Woody Lite

To Rome with Love (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, and much too harshly, for some sexual candor and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Having conquered France — and re-ignited his career, not to mention securing yet another Academy Award, for scripting last year’s Midnight in Paris — Woody Allen continues his European tour with an intermittently charming visit to Italy.

To the mounting horror of Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi, far left), his
stuffy older relatives mistakenly assume that professional call girl
Anna (Penélope Cruz) is his new wife .. and then he's forced to
continue the charade — with Anna's amused assistance — lest the
cat be let out of the bag.

The good news is that, while nowhere near as fresh and clever as Midnight in Paris, To Rome with Love nonetheless continues Allen’s pleasantly droll examinations of continental love, and the pursuit of same. His goal isn’t nearly as lofty this time; one gets the sense that these four vignettes — connected solely by location — are modest little pieces that Allen knew couldn’t be expanded into full-length films.

As a result, we have a quartet of short stories, much like his piece (“Oedipus Wrecks”) in the 1989 anthology film, New York Stories. The results here are a bit uneven, ranging from hilarious and sharply observed, to overly talky and mannered in the way that sounds so uniquely “Woody Allen” ... the latter an affectation that may have been extended beyond its sell-by date.

At 112 minutes, To Rome with Love also feels overlong, with two of the segments suffering from visible bloat: not terribly so, but enough to prompt viewer restlessness.

Allen signals his disparate intentions by having the film introduced by a somewhat careless traffic policeman (Pierluigi Marchionne), who proudly extols the virtues of his city, and its many stories. We then meet four different sets of characters, each faced with a crisis of circumstance, existential angst or celestial manipulation.

Newlyweds Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) have arrived in Rome to begin life together, and so that he can impress his boorish, straight-laced relatives and — through their contacts — secure an upscale job in the big city. But with only hours to spare, Milly sets off to get her hair done, and becomes lost; meanwhile, Antonio is confronted by a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) who shows up at his hotel room by mistake, and then is forced to play his wife when the condescending relations arrive.

To make matters worse, the impressionable Milly wanders onto a film set and finds herself the target of a legendary movie star (Antonio Albanese), who hopes to enjoy her as afternoon delight. And she’s not wholly adverse to the notion; is it so awful, to want to bed a famous film actor?