Pinocchio 964 (Japanese -- 1992)

[cranefly]

Pinocchio 964 by Shozin Fukui (Japanese -- 1992)

How can you go wrong with a cybernetic sex slave? I mean, we're talking safe territory here, right?

Wrong.

This was the most depressing movie I've ever seen.

A lobotomized, cybernetic sex slave named Pinocchio drifts aimlessly around Japan. A girl named Himiko takes him under her wing, and together -- or taking turns -- they exhibit aberrant behavior in public places (the director is bent on capturing odd reactions from real people). It's mostly performance art designed to get a reaction. If a plot exists, it's incomprehensible. There is one outstanding effect -- showing a character exhibiting an extremely intense emotion (usually "anguish") and maintaining it over the span of a "very long" scene -- often in a public place. A couple of these hyper-emotive scenes are mesmerizing. But the director turns out to be a one-trick pony, and the technique is way overused and wears mighty thin over a span of two hours. A slightly intriguing curiosity piece, but long and grim and stridently despairing in a mental illness sort of way that makes you want to dress Bjork in a swan costume and assure her over and over, "Things will get better, they will, just you wait," though she's not even in this movie, and all the swans are dead, and things won't ever get better….

[Drunk Monk]

Pinocchio (2020)

A new Italian version starring Robert Begnini as Geppeto. It’s somewhat surreal which kept me watching. Most of the effects were elaborate masks instead of cgi (but there was plenty of cgi). The masks felt like throwbacks to the 90s - well made but not radically improved since then.

The story parallels the Disney version. There’s a superego cricket, a puppet master, cat & fox, the jackass conversion, a guardian fairy, swallowed by a whale (a shark here), and the lying nose enlargement. There’s also a snail maid, a monkey judge and more. 

Begnini is only in the beginning and end so not as annoying as he can be. Pinocchio is a brat and I wanted him to suffer more. The fairy is mysterious, but like so much in this retelling, you just got to accept her ambiguous motivations. I had a hard time believing that any of the characters had any motives beyond the most surface. They were just checkpoints in the fable.

Ultimately I found it rather meh. It had some artsy moments that were likely beautiful storyboards but it just didn’t come together. The old world Italy reminded me of medieval Monty Python - soiled tattered rags.  

Not D00M recommended.

Watched on Amazon Prime but posted here just to shuffle the top of the DVD subforum.