Pinocchi-O-Rama comes to an end with a movie that will absolutely say nothing to anyone outside of Italy, despite being technically released in the US i seriously doubt there’s a solid stratum of english language coverage on OcchioPinocchio, which isn’t surprising since in time the film has not gotten much of a revaluation, heck quite the opposite, even by people that discovered it unaware of its messy production history or the figure of Tuscanian comedian and director Francesco Nuti.
While i’m not gonna over how a primer of Nuti’s work as there’s no time and i’m far from the right person for the job, the movie itself did hit all the snags while in production, expected to be in theather for Christmas 1993, shot in Texas and Louisiana, nowhere ready by the expected date, with a budget of 13 millions (pretty luscious for an Italian production at the time) that, due to the death of one of the distributor’s namesake founders, balooned to 25-30 millions.
Worse, as the dwindling relationship between Nuti and the production company had the set being stripped, he eventually had to sue the producer to try and make shooting proceed, which didn’t stop Nuti having to fork out 2 millions out of his own pocket to get the thing done and released by 1994.
All for a movie that basically nuked any goodwill and expectations left for Nuti as a creator, not only marking his creative crisis but also being a huge flop, bringing in 5 millions in box office.
Pinocchio-meter:
So, i’d usually wait lambasting the fidelity to Carlo Collodi’s opus for later, but even on a superficial level i have to immediatly ask what the fuck does this have to do with Pinocchio.
Because the plot of OcchioPinocchio is about a young man, Pinocchio, with the mind of a child (an idiot sauvant, if you will) that works and lives as an assistant and gravekeeper in a Tuscanian hospice , until an american banker learns through a post-humous letter by his dead brother that Pinocchio is actually his son, and tries to bring him to the United States and into his world.
The young man rejects the new life and enviroment, gets tangled with a wanted woman, they travel America together, even have sex, but the woman is ultimately gunned down, Pinocchio’s father catches up to him, brings him back to the hospice in Tuscany, only for the young man to escape his captivity back to America and finally walk off on the nose of a giant Pinocchio into the sky…
Heck, 964 Pinocchio had mind-wiped mass produced sex slaves as its main theme, and even that feels less detatched from the story it takes its namesake from, in terms of references there’s almost nothing, aside from the protagonist name (played by Francesco Nuti himself), the girl is named Lucy Light (hence a reference to the italian name of the character Lampwick, Lucignolo, which means “small light”), a character named Cat, and some imagery that plays the obvious tropes, plus the aforementioned final shot of him walking with a girl over the nose of a silhoutted pinocchio’s nose, as an old woman recites the incipit of Carlo Collodi’s novel, which ends up just further alienating it from Pinocchio’s story.
Even calling it a very, very loose adaptation feels generous.
Real Boy Ratio:
Even ignoring for the sake of argument the fact it’s an incredibly loose re-imagining of the original Carlo Collodi tale in terms of events, even putting that aside, even the themes of Pinocchio aren’t present, so the Pinocchio namesakes and imagery are just gossamer ghosts of a story that has about to do with Pinocchio as it does Della Morte Dell’Amore, i mean, it has a gravekeeper protagonist, sure it has the mind of Forrest Gump, by this movie’s brand of associational logic it counts.
Is this for fans of that kind of regional Tuscanian cinema that historically always trended to tell melanchonic dramedies about charmingly naive or slightly juvenile protagonists, always stranding the line of adulthood with a mix of endearing childlike qualities?
Not that either, because (leaving aside the fact Pinocchio was reimagined in film and stage – especially in Tuscany – many, many times) even similar authors like Pieraccioni knew their limits and them still being the product of stand-up comedies, cabaret, and a kind of regional style of entertaiment that doesn’t quite survive any “uprooting”, or was done better by actual italian cinema masters i could mention but won’t because even just that would make me feel dirty.
This because the movie unintentionally demonstrates that even genuine desire to make your vision come unfiltered and true is not substitute for talent, so it inevitably comes off as a pretentious pile of nothing, because there’s no mastery of the craft to back up the ego/ambition of the director, as it delivers pointless narrative about insipid, unlikeable characters that have no chemistry or a meaningful dialogue until 1 hour in this 140 minutes film, horrid pacing, drama that feels misplaced at the core, and “comedy”.
Because the actor was a stand-up comedian, we get … really trite, dated and out of place cabaret level comedy, low brow and low quality, and honestly even with the extra cultural contest i have being familiar with this kind of cinema… it’s unsufferable at worst, unfunny at best.
I don’t use the term “pretentious” lightly, especially since it has been abused to hell by wankers and people that do not know any better, but i really can’t find a better word for it, with all the cliched negative implications it usually comes with, even worse when it randomly references movies that actually have vision, like Forrest Gump, Blues Brothers, Sugarland Express, all seemingly because they were shooting the movie in America and needed some justifications for the budget. Maybe?
A cardinal sin is never remind one of better movies that actual have a purpose existing while you meander through your allegedly-but-not-really Pinocchio based vision.
Overall Evaluation
I will not fault Nuti for doing what he wanted and could, given the unenviable production history behind OcchioPinocchio, but i will have to wonder for whom this film could ever possibly be, since , aside from having almost nothing to do with the story of Pinocchio (either in terms of superficial plot beats, references or themes), we’re left with a very pretentious, directionless, confused and pointless snoozer, technically an anti-coming of age story about escapism and the concept of blissful idiot as the hero that escapes the cruelties of adult life, but done so poorly and yet with such pride it’s just baffling, and with a cast that wastes both its italian actors, like Chiara Caselli, for 90 % of the movie pretty much nude in a way that’s neither chaste or titillating, just embarassing, and Joss Ackland, whom coincidentally did star in a Pinocchio mini-series.
Not even the “so bad its worth checking out for laughs”, so throughly empty is the experience, thought the drop in quality after the first 20 minutes does make one wonder, and one could argue it’s at least a case study of ambition outpacing reality, where the vision is far from inscrutable yet might as well be, since the final result (which i might remind you it’s not the final cut, as there was allegedly 1 hour of footage that Nuti couldn’t get out even on home video releases) it’s a messy, overly long session of shooting for the stars with a slingshot and some papermaciè balls, while leaving no real mark or making any point of substance.
Pointless, pretentious gibberish, and don’t use these terms lightly.
And yet i’m not mad or angry at it, despite it being mostly unsufferable, i mostly feel pity because it’s so transparent in his misguided ambition, and i’m not saying you shouldn’t watch it, at all, unless you crave pointless, overly ambitious, confused greyness, then OcchioPinocchio is for you. Except it’s most likely not for you.
Wise Cafe (International) 