The characters of elderly woodcarver Geppetto and his exuberant living puppet Pinocchio were first created in an 1883 Italian novel and later popularized by Disney.

But in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, out on Netflix next month, they find themselves living in Benito Mussolini's interwar world of military salutes, strict conformity and violent machismo.

"I wanted [to set the film in] a moment in which behaving like a puppet was a good thing," del Toro told AFP on the red carpet of this weekend's AFI Fest in Hollywood.

"I wanted Pinocchio to be disobedient," he added. "I wanted Pinocchio, who was the only puppet, to not act like a puppet. I thought, thematically, that was perfect."

While the theme of fascism could appear timely in light of recent global politics, del Toro said the movie was just as relevant when he conceived the project years ago.

Indeed, del Toro has previously used his distinctive Gothic fairy tales to tackle the specter of fascism with films such as Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, both set in Franco-era Spain.

"It is something that concerns me because it's something that humanity seems to come back to," he said. "I've always seen it. I don't know if it's the color of my glasses, but I always see it."

Fascism is "always alive in the background – or in the foreground", he said.

'Sort of kaleidoscopic'

The Oscar-winning Mexican director pitched his version of Pinocchio to Hollywood studios and producers for years before streaming giant Netflix finally bought the rights in 2018. 

"I've been fighting to make it for half my career," he said.

The movie required over 1,000 days of filming.

It uses the painstaking method of stop-motion animation, in which puppets are carefully manipulated frame by frame to create the illusion of movement.

For del Toro, using computer-generated imagery, like in Disney's own recent live-action remake of its previous, seminal 1940 animation, was never an option.

"It was very pertinent for me to make a story about a puppet with puppets, and the puppets believe they are not puppets," he said. "It is a very beautiful sort of kaleidoscopic, telescoping thing."

While del Toro has long been fascinated by animation, he won his best director and best picture Oscars with 2017's live-action The Shape of Water. Pinocchio marks his first animated feature film.

"In North America, animation is seen as a genre for kids a little more," he said. "One of the things that I think everybody is trying to change, not just us, is to say, 'Animation is film, animation is acting, animation is art.’"

Stop-motion animation can "touch upon profoundly moving, profoundly spiritual things”, but it is "a practice that is constantly on the verge of extinction", he adds.

"It's only kept alive by crazy fanatics. [...] We keep it alive!"

Mother's legacy

While the story explores the father-son bond, Del Toro became fascinated with the character of Pinocchio as a child when he was introduced to the mischievous marionette by his mother, with whom he was extremely close.

"I'd collect artifacts from Pinocchio. [...] My mother and I saw it together when I was very young, and she kept giving me Pinocchios all through my life," he recalled.

She passed away last month, just one day before the film's world premiere in London. Del Toro told the audience there that they were about to watch "a film that bonded me with my mom for an entire life”.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio will be released on Netflix globally from Dec. 9. The film's cast of voice actors includes Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro and Tilda Swinton.