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puzzledemigod · 2 years ago

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Ok so at the beginning of the movie Pinocchio is kinda scary right? His limbs are too long and he's not wearing clothes and he's half unfinished and the way he moves his face is unsettling (you're used to the mechanical movement of the other humans at that point so the use of replacement to show the emotions leaves a wooden, static effect on his features at all times). He keeps repeating phrases and speaks too loudly and doesn't read the room and doesn't feel pain. It would be threatening or mocking if it was on purpose, and even it not being was at least a bit cringy. It's very much Geppetto's point of view: you tried to bring your son back but he came back wrong and now he's destroying whatever life you had left

And then the movie goes on and Pinocchio doesn't really change; he understands better, he starts to listen to those around him and to see what people need, but he's still gangly and awkward and loud, he still breaks things and doesn't show emotion the way other people do, is still undeniably other.

But he shows he was absorbing everything Sebastian told him; he payed attention to others who were, like him, exploited for being weak. He comforted, protected, saved, risked himself for his father, who seemingly rejected him. For the kid who bullied him. For the monkey who was the reason he was enslaved. We don't know if he was empathetic to these people but he had such a strong concept of justice and of fairness, he was so pure of all the hate being spat in the society he was born in, that he stood against it without a second thought.

And at that point I realised, without him having anything physically changed about him to make him more relatable, that I stopped seeing him as other, as weird, as menacing. He had the same energy and emotions but by then he was just another kid, he was a cute and sweet boy who I'd do anything to protect, who was in danger

And he didn't have to change a thing about himself!! It's us and Geppetto and Cricket and Candlewick and Spazzatura and the world around him who have to come around and accept him. And we do, eventually, and I think that was so beautiful

#guillermo del toro #i love that we're included in the story like that. he wasn't a cutesy child that the villains in the story viewed absurdly as an object #he actually looked like an object. but we STILL come around to him #pinocchio #so often we get a transformation even if subtle to change how we view these characters #softer features or clothes or something to humaise them #in this movie we arguably get the opposite: he has charred limbs and scratches and a decidedly not human body #he breaks his nose off without a second thought and losing his hand isn't a threat in any way except in hindering his swimming #but that whole scene broke my heart #i didn't even realise when i stopped seeing him as puppet #even while he still acted as one in volpo's show he morphed into a child in my head #anyways idk how to say this properly #it's just... in other pinocchio adaptations he basically starts off as a boy already he just has to catch up on the details to be allowed #that title. and here he theoretically already has a boy's soul but has to be accepted as his own person by others #he has nothing to prove he doesn't even see the sprite! it's cricket's job to advise him and geppetto has to come around and candlewick #consider him a friend instead of an object etc etc he is already himself #ANYWAYS

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