When it was released, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” received glowing reviews, and by all indications, the stop-motion animation is a resounding success. Now it leads the Annie Awards with nine nominations.
“Pinocchio,” which has picked up 38 awards so far this season, including the Golden Globe for animated feature, is one of three Netflix projects up for best feature, along with “The Sea Beast” and “Wendell & Wild.”
Fifteen years in the making, the film co-directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson boasts an all-star cast of voice talent, including Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton. However, overwhelming praise for the latest take on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale centered on its visual and thematic approach.
Polygon’s Oli Welsh noted that del Toro brought the “story to the mid-20th century,” by expanding on the classic take “to take in many of his own key motifs, especially from the horrific fairy tales ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’; Europe between the wars, the specter of Fascism, the terror of childhood, the land of the dead, and the meeting point of the monstrous, the human, and the sublime.” He goes on to praise the film as “technically and artistically, one of the great works of stop motion.”
Netflix has one contender in the indie feature field: “My Father’s Dragon,” with Cartoon Saloon. Other films nominated for best feature are Disney-Pixar’s “Turning Red” and DreamWorks Animation’s “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.” Rounding out the indie feature category are “Charlotte,” from January Films, Balthazar Productions and Walking the Dog; “Inu-Oh,” from Science SARU; “Little Nicholas, Happy as Can Be,” from On Classics (Mediawan) and Bidibul Productions; and “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” from Marcel the Movie, LLC.
