Starring Roberto Benigni, Federico Ielapi, Rocco Papaleo, Massimo Ceccherini, Marine Vacth, Gigi Proietti

Directed by Matteo Garrone

Vertigo Films, in cinemas now

Carlo Collodi’s tale of a puppet come to life…

I should start by saying that Pinocchio is my least favourite of the classic 20th Century Disney animations, so I went to see Matteo Garrone’s new Italian live action iteration of the story more out of academic curiosity than anything else…

…and I left the cinema haunted and blown away.

This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but as a piece of children’s genre movie making, this reviewer finds it to be a genuinely terrific piece of cinema. I was half expecting something akin to the pointless Disney ‘live’ action remakes of recent years, but this is an entirely different beast.

However, having said I think it is extraordinary and brilliant, I have to qualify that by adding that it is WEIRD… I mean really very weird… and proper scary (as my other half would say). Think Singing Ringing Tree (complete with poorly synced English dubbing) except it’s two hours long and with a child being hanged in it, oh yes, and subtextual undercurrents of child abuse and paedophilia. So in that respect although the handful of kids in the cinema were actually a lot more engaged in this than I was expecting, this might not be for tinies. It’s not a safe, sugary cinematic adventure by any respect.

I read the book about thirty years ago and I’m pretty sure that this is much more truthful to the original in the same way that Jonathan Miller’s 1960s take on Alice In Wonderland was a truthful reading of Lewis Carroll. There are also shades of Terry Gilliam and Angela Carter, and the transformation into donkeys owes more to American Werewolf In London than the Children’s Film Foundation. This is the stuff of nightmares. Well, my nightmares anyway.

On a nuts and bolts level it looks amazing. The design/lighting/cinematography is exquisite throughout, the CGI is done with a light touch, and most of what you see on screen looks ‘real’ albeit in a heightened way. Only the sequence with the giant fish/whale looks overtly fabricated. To cap it all Roberto Benigni is in it – an actor who I still haven’t forgiven for the awful Life Is Beautiful – playing Gepetto and he’s very good indeed.

But here’s the thing… this is a proper movie. It belongs on a big screen. So if you’re ready to brave a movie theatre then please do make the effort…

…and don’t have nightmares. 9/10

Martin Jameson