Give it life

The term animation comes from the Latin to mean a bestowing of life. It, primarily, used to mean vivacity or liveliness more than anything. Certainly, its use predates the entertainment medium which it describes. Many here in the United States view moving drawings as the domain of children. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, that is not true art. Adults can’t enjoy this, scoff the purveyors of good taste. However animated films came before the movie camera with many a flip book. My own view of it, emotions transcend the tools which are used to convey them. Sadly, many studios feel that actual characters and motivations aren’t needed for a successful animated feature.

Guillermo del Toro has been a man after his heart in every project he seeks out. A fabulist in practice, each film he has taken on works in his sense of wonder and awe at the world around him. His Pinocchio is no exception. A work that he has mulled over for the better part of a decade, Netflix gave him the go-ahead to see his vision through. Watching each sequence of stop-motion animation makes you appreciate painstaking craftsmanship that went into each facial expression, each body movement. But regardless of that, every character is imbued with spirit and pathos.

This version starts out with Geppetto before he made the little wooden boy. In a prologue that reminds us of the first ten minutes of UP, we see how a loss brought him here. The voice acting is superb, with Pinocchio acting how a boy who has never been real would react to new things. Dazzled by everything to the point of cloying whimsy, Gregory Mann makes the puppet endearing. Ewen MacGregor makes a perfect cricket, here named Sebastian. He gives narrative momentum while providing great comic relief as well. A host of others including Tilda Swinton, Christof Waltz, Cate Blanchett and Ron Perlman round out the cast.

As all Del Toro productions, he always adds extra elements to the story. This time the setting is the late-30s and the rise of Italian fascism. Posters of Mussolini dot buildings and the man even shows up to watch Pinocchio perform. When Pinocchio is first revealed in front of a church congregation, the local commandant asks how he is being controlled. He snaps back, “Who’s controlling you?” The irony of the situation shouldn’t be lost on the viewer. These small touches make for an highly recommended feature, a shoe-in for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars.

Another film on Netflix that was released last year was Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. Unfortunately, this one was buried by their algorithm, deep in the vault. However, when this started popping on many forums’ top ten lists, I decided to give it a watch. And how glad I am that I did.

Richard Linklater has been known for everything, romantic films like the Before Trilogy to crime films like Bernie. But one thing he has been is an engine for nostalgia from his breakout Dazed and Confused. Here he takes on an almost-autobiographical tone as he tells the story of Stan, the youngest of a large family in Texas where his dad works for NASA in 1969. Through hilarious narration from Jack Black as Adult Stan, he alternates between coming of age tale and flight of fancy.

In his mind, the team of Apollo come to him to say that they accidentally made a kids-sized lunar module and want him to test it before Neil and Buzz. At the same time, we hear about his recollections about topics of the day. The rich family life and cultural touchstones play alongside this child’s imagination. Filmed in front of green screen then animated over through rotoscoping, a dreamlike quality comes over the proceedings. Don’t sleep on this feature! Whether you lived through it or not, it is definitely essential viewing.

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