Tag Archives: stop motion animation

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Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

by Hope Madden

Is it any surprise that Guillermo del Toro’s visionary style, sentimental sensibilities, and macabre leanings suit animation so well? If there was any question, he dispels it with his gorgeous, emotional stop-motion wonder, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Co-directed with sculptor/animator Mark Gustafson, the film begins, as all good children’s tales must, with devastating loss and grief. If you thought the opening minutes of Up! were heartbreaking, gird your loins for this one.

The tragedy begins to abate, albeit clumsily and with much shouting, once Geppetto (David Bradley) hacks away at the tree recently occupied by one Sebastian J. Cricket, homeowner (Ewan McGregor, charming). Cricket’s home becomes Geppetto’s disobedient new puppet. You may think you know where it goes from here, but you do not.

Del Toro’s script, co-written with Patrick McHale and Matthew Robbins, establishes itself immediately as a very different story than Disney’s. The 1940 film – and, to a degree, the live-action remake Disney launched earlier this year – offers a cautionary tale about obedience. So does del Toro’s, although, in true GDT fashion, he’s warning against it.

Set between world wars in rural Italy, the film – as so many of del Toro’s do – examines the presence and pressures of authoritarianism, specifically Catholicism and fascism, on families and on the young.  

A magnificent cast including Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Tim Blake Nelson, Ron Perlman, Burn Gorman, Finn Wolfhard, John Turturro, Christoph Waltz, and Gregory Mann as Pinocchio brings charisma and dark humor to their roles. This matches the sometimes darkly funny images. Waltz, in particular, is garish, frightening fun as Count Volpe, puppet master.

The animation itself is breathtaking, and perfectly suited to the content, as if we’ve caught an artist in the act of giving his all to bring his creation to life. Everything about the film is so tenderly del Toro, whose work mingles wonder with melancholy, historical insight with childlike playfulness as no other’s does.

New In Theaters, Slider

Who’s a Good Dog?

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Isle of Dogs

by Hope Madden

First note in my Isle of Dogs screening notebook: God damn it, I want a dog.

Second note: Wait, Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton are in another film that appropriates Asian culture? Come on!

And that about sums up the conflicting emotions Wes Anderson generates with his latest stop-motion wonder.

Isle of Dogs is Anderson’s second animated effort, coming nearly a decade after another tactile amazement, 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. A millennia-long feud between the Kobayashis of Megasaki and dogs comes to a head when corrupt Mayor Kobayashi uses a dog flu outbreak to whip up anti-canine sentiment and banish all dogs to Trash Island.

But his orphaned ward Atari (Koyu Rankin) steals a miniature prop plane and crash lands on Trash Island looking for his beloved Spots (Liev Schreiber).

The little pilot is aided in his quest by a scruffy pack including Rex (Edward Norton), Boss (Bill Murray), gossipy Duke (Jeff Goldblum, a riot), King (Bob Balaban), and reluctant helper/lifelong stray, Chief (Bryan Cranston).

Other voice talent as concerned canines: Johansson, Swinton, F. Murray Abraham and Harvey Keitel.

Explained via onscreen script in typically Anderson fashion, dog barks have been translated into English and Japanese remains Japanese unless there’s an electronic, professional or exchange student translator handy. The choice shifts the film’s focus to the dogs (in much the way Peanuts shows remained focused on children by having adults speak in squawks). It also means that moviegoers who speak Japanese are afforded an enviably richer experience.

But for a large number of American audiences, it means that Japanese characters are sidelined and the only human we can understand is the white foreign exchange student, Tracy (Greta Gerwig). From Ohio, no less.

Between an affectionate if uncomfortably disrespectful representation of Japanese culture and Gerwig’s white savior role, Anderson’s privilege is tough to look past here, even with the scruffy and lovable cast.

The animation is beyond spectacular, with deep backdrops and meticulously crafted characters. Atari’s little teeth killed me. The voice talent is impeccable and the story itself a joy, toying with our dictatorial nature, the need to rebel and to submit, and how entirely awesome dogs are.

Set to an affecting taiko drum score with odes to anime, Ishiro Honda, Akira Kurosawa and every other Japanese movie Anderson watched as a kid, the film is clearly an homage to so much of what he loves. His skill remains uniquely his own and nearly unparalleled in modern film.

And Isle of Dogs is a touching, flawlessly crafted animated dream. That probably should have been set in America.