Interview with Guillermo del Toro

Interviewer: How has your vision changed or how has it changed from when you started making it to now that you have had the opportunity to make it, and what were the most essential points that you kept throughout the time?

Guillermo del Toro: From the beginning we knew it was a fable about disobedience. From the beginning we knew it was a story in a way about the reincarnation of a perfect son in an imperfect son. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to set it against the backdrop of the fascist era... but what emerged over time is the idea of making it about life and death, making it about the possibility of loving without transforming, but loving as you are, and finally the idea of making it a film about how brief our time in this world is, that is, how we are in a moment and then we are no longer. It was changed by the fact that as a son I had a deeper dialogue with my father and then I lost him, as a father I had a deeper dialogue with my son because in adolescence is when children tell you exactly what you did wrong and with absolute clarity and certainty, and it is in the parents to learn to listen and I listened, and it is very difficult to hear but very useful and very constructive, so the film was changing as I was changing.

Interviewer: I would just like to return to the theme of disobedience because I think that makes your version of Pinocchio very unique, because in general we see Pinocchio or we understand him as a character who has to learn to obey to be human but in this film he learns to disobey and he sees how lies can even be useful and even other characters like Candlewick learn to disobey, so how was the process to make this change in the character of Pinocchio and link it with fascism in Italy.

Guillermo del Toro: For me, the idea in Pinocchio, that the son that Gepetto has first is perfect, he is Carlo and Gepetto talks to him about perfection, he tells him: 'Look, this pinecone is missing a seed, you have to look for a perfect one', and the son that he receives, when he asks for a miracle, he receives the miracle but not the miracle he expects. And then when Pinocchio arrives, he doesn't get everybody to adore him, he scares the people in the church, they want to burn him, they don't understand him. For Gepetto it is a nightmare because he was very loved by the whole town because he always did the right thing and now he has a very strange son, yes, and the reality, the beautiful thing is that little by little Pinocchio's purity transforms everyone around him, the cricket feels or thinks he is very wise but he really learns from Pinocchio on a human emotional level. Gepetto, who is always telling very simple, very simple even simplistic truths, learns very deep truths from Pinocchio. And I think the most moving lesson of the film, even though there are spoilers in what I'm going to say, is that it starts with a father who is unable to understand death and ends with a father who understands death and a son who is able to lose a father, as opposed to a father who is not able to lose a son. It's a film in that sense very moving and the idea, effectively, Pinocchio doesn't transform, he doesn't become a real boy, he's always been true about his nature and he transforms the world around him. They are very different things, that, the idea of disobedience as a virtue, which is a very necessary virtue against totalitarianism, are ideas really very much of now for me, it's not about fascism in Italy, it's today, here all over the world. Disobedience is urgent and disobedience is in the hands of the young, that is, for the reality is that the old obey more naturally and Gepetto obeys much more easily than Pinocchio. So, to make a film in love with disobedience, in love with the fact that Pinocchio is not easy or cute but difficult, that he asks difficult questions, all this was the intention of the film.

Interviewer: And speaking of disobedience and struggle, your commitment to animation is extremely admirable, especially because you are doing it from Mexico, with Mexican artists. Why is animation so important to you, since you have had the opportunity to create great works in live action? What is it about animation that makes it not only such a special artistic medium but also a means to tell stories as difficult and profound as Pinocchio?

Guillermo del Toro: Look, it's a very complicated answer but I'll tell you the basics: animation is the highest form of creation because there is nothing, in live action you capture an accident with your camera, you provoke an emotional or special effects accident and you capture it. In animation you have to create everything, the wind that moves the hair, the spinning of a sack, a small accident when a glass of wine falls, whatever it is, you have to create it all at the same time. Stop motion animation is the one that has been closest to me, I did it when I started before 'Cronos', I continued it with a company that did special effects and animation is the one that attracts the weirdest people like me, that is, it's an animation that collects weirdos, stop motion animation, and that allows for weirder stories. And for me the weird is what is interesting, the weird is what adds reality to the world and, in a certain sense, the weird is the truth and, for me, it is vital that young people in Mexico can continue practicing animation because normally in Latin America culture depends on the government and animation can be done with few means, that is, it can be done with solidarity with small groups without depending on government support of millions and millions and it seems to me a vital protest art. The best animators are young, those who are now, the generation of young animators that exists around the world is probably the best generation of animation in decades and it is a very difficult time to exercise it. So any support that can be given is support for the voice of the people who are coming up.

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© Emby Lat

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