“You have to do your best, and that’s the best anyone can do.”
Talking Cricket in Pinocchio
To get the new year off to the best possible start, Ocarina listens to Farewell Papa, a sweet and poignant song that is part of the wonderful soundtrack to the new Pinocchio, released by Netflix a few weeks ago. The stop-motion film directed by Guillermo del Toro is gaining so much appreciation from audiences that it has already taken the top spot on the Christmas week’s most-viewed movies list.
While wanting to pay homage to Carlo Collodi’s novel, Oscar-winning director del Toro has reinterpreted the characters, giving them new meaning. Pinocchio, for example, was born out of the pain and anger of a man who cannot accept the emptiness of grief. And as Talking Cricket says several times, “this is a story of imperfect fathers and sons,” where the protagonists, as well as often people in real life, have to face continuous painful experiences and “have the courage to remain good, there where everything seems to be plunging into a dark abyss.”
And it is precisely to capture the essence of the film and the emotions it evokes that Frenchman Alexandre Desplat (highly acclaimed film composer, Oscar winner for the soundtrack of “The Shape of Water”) who was entrusted with the creation of the soundtrack, composed an original score, brilliant, performed only with wooden instruments.
No timpani or cymbals, but with an assortment of wind and percussion instruments, piano, mandolin and guitar…
According to Desplat, the softness of the wooden sound could best reflect the soul of the film.
Among the tracks on the soundtrack, Farewell Papa best expresses Pinocchio’s emotions, particularly the wooden puppet’s sadness at leaving Geppetto behind.
Below is the video showing Geppetto’s wanderings along Italy in search of his puppet son, accompanied by the singing of the young wooden protagonist.
