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What most attracts the attention of the new ' Pinocchio ' by Matteo Garrone, and with Roberto Benigni as soul and Geppetto, is his vocation for the nightmare. And it is not so much an exercise in heterodoxy, but quite the opposite. The closer to Carlo Collodi's original lyrics, the more painful. Pinocchio is, by definition, a confusing being. And provocative. It is human, but it is still a simple wooden puppet. Like Jesus Christ himself, he became flesh by supernatural intervention and his father was nothing more than a modest carpenter. Its origin is found in the elegant and cruel manners of the Comedy of Art. And in the Jewish legend of the Golem.
They say that Collodi, its author, conceived it as a story for adults; However, chance or fate made it end up published in a children's magazine. With classic fairy tales he shares cruelty, the tremendous and the lack of scruples. Without regard. Its place is the always surprised look of a child who only understands the spectacular horror. But, in the same way, its place is also in the nostalgic look of an adult who still feels, despite everything, the need for mystery.
Matteo Garrone and Roberto Benigni are aware of all of the above. And else. His film refutes the Disney version that has just turned 80 and much of the infinite versions for a cinema too timid, too afraid of fear caused by fear. Benigni himself was the protagonist in his own 2002 film. Let's say that this new version would be on the side of all those who were just born. For fear perhaps of the clarity of the original letter that is nothing more than simple darkness. Those of Fellini, Coppola or, why not, Guillermo del Toro, all live pending the enigma. All tried and, probably drowned by the character's own confusion, failed. This time, Pinocchio hurts. He always did.
Garrone takes up the journey begun in ' The story of the stories ' (2015). But vice versa. There, what he intended was to recover his fold for the fairy tale, which is hidden. Not in vain, since Erich Fromm dismantled the story of Little Red Riding Hood , nothing was the same again. When the German psychoanalyst insisted on demonstrating that the red cloak of marras was a symbol of menstruation and the wolf, the threatening image of the girl's first sexual experience, there was no longer a remedy or a father to endure the book between the hands
Well, now the idea is to recover the text in its fairest terms. With the reference of both the original illustrator (Enrico Mazzanti) and the modernist painting of the Macchiaioli. And it is there, in the literalness, where the shadows and the true depth of a character appear, it has already been said, confusing. The director does not save a single detail. Each scene opens to the viewer as an exercise at the same time of revelation and concealment. It looks much more, but that, contrary to what one might imagine, only offers more darkness, more blackness about the true nature of both the character and all of us.
Each transformation (donkey by lazy), each appearance of the best-known characters (the cricket or the snail lady) and each adventure (the dive in the belly of the whale) seems radically new. After all, that's what it's all about: seeing things for the first time and forever. The result is a convulsive, murky and profound and extravagantly beautiful film. The opposite of disassembly or demystification. It is, quite the other way around, to restore confusion to the confusing. Proverbial.
Petzold and the unequal official section
For the rest, the official section continued its tired rhythm. It is still early, it has not yet reached the middle of the festival, but the many hopes raised by the new director of all this, Carlo Chatrian, remain, for now, that: hopes. And less and less large. In competition, Christian Petzold , who two years ago surprised with the irrefutable and even huge ' En transit ', now proposes a much more measured and controlled and much less ambitious exercise . Beautiful, yes.
' Undine ' wants to be a kind of late visit to love in its eternally romantic version. And for that, poetic. And even aquatic. The story of two lovers joined by a broken fishbowl is told. It sounds strange and it is. Paula Beer and the always surprising Franz Rogowski meet at the moment an aquarium falls on them. Water predestination is called. They will dive together in the lakes of Berlin and together they will stroll through that same Berlin.
She, who acts as a guide in a city museum, explains that progress does not really exist; that, despite revolutions and urban plans, cities are reluctant to change. And as an example, the Palace (or Schloss) teaches that, once rebuilt to date, matches the 21st century with the 15th. Despite having been knocked down whole and raised again. Nothing changes. Nor, of course, love.
Petzold plays metaphors, but without exaggeration. And he manages to compose his particular, subtle and, as has already been said, a beautiful walk through love and death.
Beside him, Brazilians Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra presented ' Todos os mortos '. And the bewilderment. Dutra is known, and recognized, works such as ' Era el cielo ' (2016) or ' Los modales ' (2017), always attentive to using the rules of the genre , the ' thriller ', to play the sour social story and provocative . Now in the company of Gotardo the proposal is entirely different. Almost everything.
The idea is to portray in a melodrama tone and key the split structure of an entire society. Without forgetting anyone. People talk about Brazil and people talk about landowners in front of slaves; of Catholicism versus Santeria; of traditions versus modernity; of white women versus black women ... Everything progresses at a leisurely pace as if it were a film by Rita Azevedo Gomes, but much worse composed. Maybe just broken down. And erratic. Tremendously tramp. Let's say 'Todos los mortos' runs on the screen for clues. Each of the phrases points to the possibility of a hidden mystery in the following statement, which, in turn, is nothing more than a signal for what will come next. Exhausting. Or just failed.
That said, there are days, like Pinocchio, just confusing.
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