Disney has released a new version of Pinocchio on its streaming service. But the more interesting movie about the wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy will come out in December.
Guillermo Del Toro’s stop-motion animation Pinocchio will be streamed on Netflix on December 9. Co-directed by Del Toro and Mark Gustafson, this film promises to have the double-weave of magic and terror that is often missing from Disney’s anodyne productions.
Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) best displays both the transformative power of parables and the unsettling nature of fairy tales. Made between Del Toro’s Hellboy films, Pan’s Labyrinth is a deeply moving union of spectacle and soul.
The Spanish-language production, which is available on Amazon Prime Video, is set in Fascist Spain in 1944 . Francisco Franco has been the country’s dictator for five years. He will stay in power until 1975, and his regime will inspire several filmmakers, from Victor Erice to Pedro Almodovar.
Like Erice’s sublime allegory The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Pan’s Labyrinth revolves around a young girl. Ofelia and her heavily pregnant mother join her new father, the cruel Army Captain Vidal, at a military camp. In the woods beyond the camp lurk rebels still holding out against Franco and a labyrinth with a faun and fairies visible only to Ofelia.
Pan’s Labyrinth moves seamlessly between Ofelia’s…
