Disney-Pixar's Soul

Okay, let me take a break from the politics, finally, and talk about something fun.

During New Year's Eve, I finally got the chance to see a movie I've been longing to see for a long time: the new Disney/Pixar film Soul.

So many people had said that this film was beautiful. Review after review, from just some of my friends who saw it, claimed it was one of the best things to come at the end of 2020. I knew I had to see it. As a life-long Disney/Pixar fan, I expected this movie to be good, if not great.

And I was not disappointed. 

Soul, in several ways, is very similar to another Disney/Pixar film from a couple of years ago, Coco, one of my favorite recent Pixar offerings (and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that).

It realistically depicts a culture from an, at present, under-represented culture. In the case of Coco, it was Mexican culture; in the case of Soul, it's African-American culture. Each roots their story in the setting most commonly associated with their respective cultural experience. For Coco, it's a pueblo; for Soul, it's the large inner-city world of New York. Each focuses on a key part of their respective character's culture: music. In the case of Coco, it's Mariachi music; for Soul, it's Jazz.

Finally--and this is where the stories somewhat diverge--each deals with the concept of the afterlife.  

Where Coco sticks to keeping the afterlife resembling what traditional Mexican culture, especially when it comes to the tradition of Los Dios de Los Muertos, says the afterlife looks like, Soul keeps things more abstract and secular. 

The afterlife in Soul is treated, as one character calls it, as a "hypothetical concept." It's reminiscent to the way world of emotions and the mind appear in Inside Out. It's not dressed up in the attire of Judeo-Christian-Islamic depictions of "the Great Beyond." The fact that it's called "The Great Beyond," and "The Great Before," instead of Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory is proof of that. There are no angels or devils, just souls, all of whom kind of look like the children of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. And it works because nobody could possibly take offense to it. 

On a structural level, Soul is pure Pixar. 

Pixar has always prided itself on doing films that don't have cookie-cutter plots or characters, and Soul furthers that trend. While there are plenty of antagonists and contagonists throughout the film, the biggest obstacle the big lie at the heart of Joe Gardner's character that what you do is the reason why you live. That internal struggle propels the movie forward all the way to the climax.

Joe gets what he wants, but he discovers that there's more to life than that. And it takes a Tina Fey-voiced nameless soul called 22 to help him figure that out.

This is where the movie truly hits home for me. Like the best Pixar movies, it's able to deal with a very complex idea--the meaning of life itself--in such a simple way. Life is not about devoting your whole life to one thing, even though our "success-obsessed" world makes you feel that way. Life is about taking pleasure in the small things. The conversations with friends. The taste and smell of food. The mundane experiences that we sometimes grow cold to after a certain point. And, of course, in the interactions we have with the people who matter to us. 

There is joy to be had in pursuing our passions and goals, yes. But, the pursuit of our goals and dreams does not make up the totality of living.

Life isn't a goal or success-driven thing you have to win.

Life is about the moments that make living worthwhile. 

Anyone who watches Soul and isn't touched by something seemingly so simple and yet so profound as that clearly wasn't paying attention. For those of us who did (and do) though, Soul is an experience that is worth every second of our time.