Pinocchio

1940 Disney movie

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 7/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: A lonely puppeteer, who perhaps is the dumbest man alive, makes a puppet out of pine. After teasing the cat with it, he makes a wish upon a star or something and goes to bed. A star fairy visits and turns the wooden puppet into a wooden boy. She instructs him to make good decisions and be brave in order to turn into a real boy, one not made of wood. A horny cricket is given the job of the puppet's conscience. When Gestapo the toy maker wakes up, he's happy to have a wooden son, and they dance around in a way that can only be described as gay. Pinocchio is sent to school the following day but decides to skip because some talking animals convince him that acting is much easier. It's an eventful day. He's kidnapped twice, gets his nose stuck in a hole, partially turns into a donkey, smokes for the first time, and gets his first erection. The cricket also tries to sell him for firewood. Eventually, the star fairy does turn Pinocchio into a real boy, albeit the type of boy who is going to be picked on frequently during his adolescence. Seriously. Just look at him.

One question: I don't get how purchasing an island and building an elaborate amusement park in order to turn little boys into donkeys is really a lucrative business.

Much more than Snow White, this one looks like a perfect culmination of the creative spirits and groundbreaking animation techniques that the Disney folk had been dicking around with for years. I really like how the bad guys work in this, especially how they don't violently die like in other Disney classics. These villains are still menacing but work more like archetypes, symbols of problems that every young wooden boy will inevitably face during childhood--temptation, taking the easy way out, hedonism, peer pressure. The action sequences are fun to watch, especially within the 1940's context. The animated characters move, not only back and forth but front and back as well. There are vibrant colors and good textural details creating what I guess is Italy but, just like in the best stories like this, don't really look like any particular time or place. There's also a depth to the settings which I imagine must have been pretty mindblowing at the time. In fact (and I'm typing this without having seen Snow White in a while), it might be world's better than Snow White. Good characters, too. The cricket not only provides some comedy relief but also, ironically, makes the story more human with the everyman narration. Geppetto, despite his idiocy, is likable and has some funny lines ("Lie back down, Pinocchio. You're dead."). And I like the peripheral characters as well. I also like that there's an intelligence to Pinocchio; not all of this is stuff that a child will appreciate. For example, I love the irony with the "I've Got No Strings" song as Pinocchio is obviously being guided by forces that he can't understand. Pinocchio is an intelligently written and artistically animated achievement and one of Disney's very best.