![]() ![]() Origin myths have been our oldest sensemaking mechanism for wresting meaning out of these as-yet-unanswered, perhaps unanswerable questions. In the astonishingly beautiful and tenderhearted Pinocchio: The Origin Story ( public library), Sanna imagines an alternative prequel to the beloved story, a wordless genesis myth of the wood that became Pinocchio, radiating a larger cosmogony of life, death, and the transcendent continuity between the two.Ī fitting follow-up to The River - Sanna’s exquisite visual memoir of life on the Po River in Northern Italy, reflecting on the seasonality of human existence - this imaginative masterwork dances with the cosmic unknowns that eclipse human life and the human mind with their enormity: questions like what life is, how it began, and what happens when it ends. In beholding this common ground of tender fragility, Sanna’s imagination leapt to a foundational myth of his nation’s storytelling - the Pinocchio story. This “discovering faculty” of the imagination, which breathes life into both the most captivating myths and the deepest layers of reality, is what animated Italian artist Alessandro Sanna one winter afternoon when he glimpsed a most unusual tree branch from the window of a moving train - a branch that looked like a sensitive human silhouette, mid-fall or mid-embrace.Īs Sanna cradled the enchanting image in his mind and began sketching it, he realized that something about the “body language” of the branch reminded him of a small, delicate, terminally ill child he’d gotten to know during his visits to Turin’s Pediatric Hospital. Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, observed a century earlier as she contemplated the nature of the imagination and its three core faculties: “Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently… that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us.” Of course, Pinocchio is too innocent to suspect his malicious intentions, and he signs a deal with the deceptive ringmaster.“Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them,” Albert Camus wrote. He’s someone who takes advantage of those that are viewed as “different,” and treats them as a spectacle. It doesn’t take long before his talents are noticed by the scheming ringmaster Count Volpe ( Christoph Waltz), who revels in getting to show off Pinocchio as a toy. This youthful ignorance that Pinocchio is given is easily taken advantage of when he ventures out into the Italian villa. ![]() ![]() However, these prospects are impossible for Pinocchio. Even if Gepetto intended for Pinocchio to replace his son, he surely would have watched his son grow up and have his own family if he had lived past childhood. There’s a selfishness to his actions that are somewhat disturbing Pinocchio is raised without knowledge of the cruelty of the world, and one day, he will not have Geptto’s kindness to shield him anymore. Cricket ( Ewan McGregor) while Gepetto does this out of kindness, he’s aware that Pinocchio would be mocked and scorned if he ever went out in public. Pinocchio is raised in isolation by Gepetto and Sebastian J. Del Toro questions whether or not this story is an endearing one at all it’s safe to say that his Pinocchio is far more than just a puppet. While he may have been taught lessons of compassion from his pseudo-father, it makes Pinocchio an anomaly in the mortal world. Pinocchio is intended to serve as Gepetto’s child, and thus he retains a childlike innocence for his entire life. What is the ethical justification for playing God and creating life, and is Pinocchio’s immortality a curse or a gift? Del Toro dexterously explores these issues as he wrestles with themes of nurture and nature. Pinocchio himself (voiced by talented newcomer Gregory Mann) is a timeless being that was made to replace something that is lost forever. While Robert Zemeckis’ recent Disney+ adaptation depicted Gepetto’s mourning for his son as tawdry melodrama, del Toro explores how the heartbroken woodcarver (voiced beautifully by David Bradley) attempts to revive the child that he knows that he’ll never see again. Inspired by Gris Grimly's concepts in the 2002 version of the 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, del Toro’s motion capture adventure grounds itself in the novel’s original setting of fascist Italy.
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