Pinocchio

➤ Rated PG
➤ Netflix

If John Bunyan hadn’t come to saving faith, he might have penned a version of Pilgrim’s Progress that unfolds like Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. In the new, visually spectacular stop-motion musical film, Pinocchio (voiced with memorable enthusiasm by Gregory Mann) ­ventures from one perilous situation to the next: a carnival where he’s forced to perform, a sea monster’s innards, the underworld, and a ­military camp for boys.

Pinocchio carries a burden, the belief that his “father,” Geppetto (David Bradley), who crafted him, doesn’t love him. Ultimately, del Toro, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, concludes through the film’s narrator, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), “What happens, happens, and then we are gone.”

The film opens in 1916 in Italy. Geppetto’s son, Carlo, dies in the village church when a bomb falls on it, but a large, unfinished crucifix that Geppetto has been constructing emerges unscathed. Geppetto assembles a wooden boy, Pinocchio, that a spirit being brings to life. But Geppetto has difficulty caring for Pinocchio, who naively bungles ­religious and social conventions.

Pinocchio’s childish innocence gives the filmmakers cover to scorn Christianity, such as when Pinocchio mimics Christ’s posture on the cross. Many years later, Geppetto completes the crucifix, driving a peg into Christ’s shoulder to attach the arm. It’s not hard to see mockery of the crucifixion here as well.

“At last, our Savior is restored,” the priest (Burn Gorman) intones, as Podesta (Ron Perlman), the civil magistrate, gives a “Sieg Heil” salute. The film often alludes to the Catholic Church’s purported collaboration with Mussolini’s fascist government.

The film has some frightening images. Pinocchio is tied to a cruciform stake in a woodpile that is set ablaze. He dies multiple times, arriving in a dark blue afterlife where skeletal rabbits play cards and a horned, sphinx-like figure named Death (Tilda Swinton) converses with him before sending him back.

Throughout his journey in search of Geppetto, Pinocchio bears hardships with starry eyes. He doesn’t realize that the affection of carnival showman Volpe (Christoph Waltz) for him is financially motivated, or that Podesta favors him over his own son because Pinocchio is the ideal soldier.

“I could get killed a lot. I’m the luckiest boy in the world,” Pinocchio chortles during one of his visits with Death. He recounts how he’s “escaped war, bullets, fire”—like the unscathed crucifix. The film juxtaposes these two wooden figures: One hangs lifelessly inside a church, while the other goes out and immerses himself in life’s “terrible, terrible joys.” And those nose-­lengthening lies? Late in the film, they come in handy.

Watching Pinocchio with my kids provided a good opportunity to discuss del Toro’s doubts and derision, which many share. And we prayed that del Toro is still a pilgrim in progress.