The Adventures of Pinocchio - An Italian Animated Masterpiece

This charming 1972 film, directed by Giuliano Cenci is a very strict adaptation of Carlo Collodi's original fairy tale. The original fairy tale seems to have had it's darker tones watered down with it's endless barrage of adaptations. Disney's adaptation being the most popular. Cenci's version of the tale of the wooden boy stays very close to the original text. Pinocchio is very much a brat that you grow to love. An anti-hero if you will. His journey mimics that of the greatest of odysseys or even that of Alice from Alice in Wonderland due to it's allegorical situations.

The world Pinocchio inhabits in this animated version is far from being cartoony or full of childlike wonderment. It's a cold muted world that Pinocchio lives in where he is betrayed by those he thinks are his closest friends and where good doesn't always prevail. He goes through a barrage of emotions that send him spiraling from hell and back again and back again. If he weren't made of wood, the movie would only be half as long as it is. At one point he is hung from a tree by his neck and has his life threatened more than once.

The movie is out of print and hard to find. Oddly, I found the ultra rare Italian version by accident and found the english version on youtube after a long time. I have posted it here so all could enjoy this obscure but incredibly inspiring movie. 

Check it out here: http://youtu.be/0dhY5eml3ps