One of the most difficult things to do for any creator is to make a magical world that abides by its own realistic rules. This may seem like a juxtaposition because magic defies the realms of the everyday and elevates existence to a level beyond our deepest imaginations, but it must nonetheless have a structure to ground it that holds up throughout the world being built, or it begins to lose all reason. This was one of the biggest challenges that Guillermo Del Toro faced when crafting his recent moviePinocchio, which shows why stop-motion is a treasured art form.
Whilst re-imagining the classic story, he wanted to include lots of new fantastical creations within the story, but to make this relatable and admired by his audience, he had to use several techniques, including filming real scenes and then animating them frame by frame to keep the realism of acting and humanity, as well as researching in-depth understanding of the time period to influence architecture, colors and textures.
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Del Toro’s Pinocchio used the perfect historical backdropof the fascist Italian era to highlight the magic and the freedom of the young puppet amidst the conformity and the terror of the war, which helped to elevate the enchanting elements of the film beyond the mundane. But there is one way in which the film doesn’t at first appear to uphold its own magical laws, and that’s in the character of Spazzatura. He is the monkey side-kick to Vulpe the antagonist of the movie, who owns the traveling circus and steals Pinocchio away in order to exploit his money-making potential.
There are several examples of animals/creatures who talk inPinocchio’s world, and retain anthropomorphism as a part of their characterization. Some of these examples include the rabbit emissaries of death, who carry the coffins to the underworld, and most notably Sebastian J Cricket, Pinocchio’s conscience guide in the mortal world. So if each of these animals has human thoughts, feelings, and speech, why doesn’t Spazzatura the monkey also talk?
There are several important things to unpick here about the magical codes of the world thatGuillermo Del Toro’sPinocchiocreated. The first is that both the rabbits who live in the underworld, and S.J.Cricket himself may have been imbued with these human gifts by their magical benefactors. The rabbits themselves aren’t technically alive, they are suspended in the magical realm between life and death, as their skeletal midnight blue appearance details, and they are servants of death herself.
Therefore, they may have been given these properties by her, so that they can explain or soothe those who pass through their borders, arriving disorientated and confused and often not even knowing that they are dead. As an omnipotent being, death has the ability to bend and change rules within the magical sphere, such as letting Pinocchio return before his time is up to save Geppetto. Thus it makes sense that she could have created the anthropomorphism of her rabbits to allow them to be better and more compassionate servants of her needs.
Likewise, the blue sprite, death’s sister who is essentially life itself, has the same magical abilities. She enchants Pinocchio with the life of a real boy so that Geppetto doesn’t have to live out his long years alone, so it denotes the possibility that she also gave Sebastian Cricket the ability to talk. The story that he tells is told in retrospect, once he has already been given the gift, and the only verbalizations we hear o him before he meets the blue fairy are said as a narrative commentary rather than spoken out loud within the world. He only begins having actual conversations with Pinocchio and Gepetto once the blue sprite has appointed him as Pinocchio’s guide, which suggests that this ability wasn’t inherent to him, but was granted to aid him in his important mission. This would all account for Spazzatura not being able to talk because he was never given the gift by a higher being.
Only, there’s a possibility that Spazzatura can talk, he just chooses not to most of the time. There is one scene in the film in which Pinocchio finds himself surrounded by the other wooden puppets on their strings, who tell him that Vulpe is using him and not sending any money home to Geppetto as promised, and that he never loved Pinocchio because all of his love and attention is taken up by Spazzatura.
This is obviously a conversation borne of the monkey’s jealousy at his master’s new toy. He feels neglected, but he is able to verbalize these feelings (voiced by Kate Blanchett, most known for playingGaladriel inLord of the Rings) in a manipulative way, which suggests it is possible for him to talk after all. He just chooses not to talk, especially around people like Vulpe who might try to exploit him for it.
Perhaps this is true, and he keeps his voice hidden out of fear and trauma at his cruel treatment, or perhaps he really can’t talk, and Pinocchio was only able to understand his intentions because Pinocchio himself is magic. Either way, Spazzatura finally finds peace and lives a long and contented life with Pinocchio and Geppetto, during which he doesn’t need words to express his love for them, and they for him.
