Between reality and imagination, Pixar's visionary new film Soul reflects on the meaning of life with a moving and surprising story.
The great mystery of life and the meaning of existence. The eternal questions about the origin and destiny of us all. In seeking to explore themes of this magnitude, Soul, the new animated feature from Disney Pixar animation studios, aims decisively high.
Dedicated to "all the mentors in our lives," Soul is the first Pixar film to choose an African American as the protagonist of the story. That protagonist is Joe Gardner, a music teacher who dreams of a career as a jazz pianist and who finds himself on the brink of death at the very moment the opportunity of a lifetime presents itself. This is where his adventure begins, balanced between two (indeed three, and even four) worlds, with a dense plot (at times a little convoluted) packed with events, including poetic, funny and even slapstick moments (for the enjoyment of the youngest viewers) and extraordinary visual and narrative ideas. Among them, the idea of turning Joe himself — an unfinished, unfulfilled man — into the mentor of a restless young soul.
The result is a film that is at once realistic, fantastical, philosophical and even metaphysical, with which the American studio pushes, once again, beyond the limits of imagination. While it does not quite reach the heights of perfection seen in masterpieces such as Inside out and Coco, Soul gives us more memorable characters (such as the soul accountant Terry), surprising graphic ideas, entertainment for the whole family, and many poetic moments filled with emotion. Not to mention universal messages that are perfectly suited to the historical period we are living through.
Magic of the kind the American studio has long accustomed us to, with stories in which art, storytelling and technology go happily hand in hand. At the helm of Soul, moreover, is a guarantee: Pete Docter, the Oscar®-winning director of Monsters & Co., Up and Inside out, as well as chief creative officer of Pixar animation studios.
It all started with my son, who is now 23 years old: the moment he was born, he already had a personality. Where had it come from? I believed that personality developed through interaction with the world. And yet it was quite clear that we are all born with a unique and specific sense of who we are.
– Pete Docter, director
Joe Gardner (voiced in the original by Jamie Foxx and in Italian by Neri Marcorè) is a middle-aged single man who lives in Queens, New York, and teaches music part time at a middle school. His great dream, however, is to work as a professional jazz pianist — a passion he has nurtured obsessively since childhood. His monotonous existence is suddenly shaken when, one day, the opportunity of a lifetime presents itself: a chance to perform in the quartet of the celebrated jazz musician Dorothea Williams. But fate has a cruel trick in store, and Joe falls down a manhole, finding himself catapulted into another dimension, on a long conveyor belt that will carry him to the Great Beyond. Determined not to die, just when he was on the verge of realising his dream, Joe escapes, accidentally ending up in the Great Before, where all souls reside prior to birth.
They are guided and managed by diligent, (almost) all-knowing counsellors who assign each soul a personality, interests and quirks, helping them to find the "spark" needed to earn their passage to Earth. Here Joe meets 22 (voiced in the original by Tina Fey and in Italian by Paola Cortellesi), a rebellious soul who, for centuries, has done everything in her power not to be born, convinced of the pointlessness and meaninglessness of life. Fate would have it that the protagonist is saddled with the thankless task (at which even Gandhi, Mother Teresa and all the greatest figures have so far failed) of acting as her mentor, to help her obtain the pass she needs to finally leave the Great Before. And so the adventure of these two apparently mismatched souls begins — souls who will end up helping one another through a journey that will change them forever.
Chosen as the opening film of the 15th Rome Film Fest last October, Soul never made it to cinemas, which were closed due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic, but was released on its streaming platform Disney+ from 25 December.
A genuine Christmas gift, which the American studio decided to offer (at no extra cost) to its subscribers, prompting mixed reactions. While audiences appreciated the gesture, cinema owners made their dissatisfaction plain, convinced that a title of this calibre could have been a powerful card to play when cinemas were finally able to reopen.
We are thrilled to share Pixar's spectacular and moving Soul with audiences directly on Disney+ in December. A new original Pixar film is always a special occasion, and this truly moving and fun story about human connection and finding one's place in the world will be a delight for families to enjoy together during the holiday season.
– Bob Chapek, CEO of The Walt Disney Company
At Disney Pixar since 1990, first as an animator, then as a screenwriter, director, and later as executive producer and creative director, Pete Docter (director and screenwriter of Soul) has strung together one success after another, thanks to an extraordinary imagination and talent. His name appears (in various capacities) on masterworks such as Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out, Wall•E and Brave, earning eight Academy Award® nominations and two Oscar wins (for Up and Inside Out).
In Soul, Docter, alongside co-director Kemp Powers, returns to doing what he does best: creating new worlds, "pushing animation beyond the limits of what's possible", as the film's executive producer Dan Scanlon has also acknowledged.
A skill he demonstrated from the days of Monsters, Inc., where, by flinging open the infinite doors of imagination, Docter and his team gave us an unforgettable and hilarious vision of the monsters that populate every child's dreams and nightmares. That same vivid imagination then led us to explore exotic and fantastical places — and, ultimately, our own emotions too — in Up, journeying aboard a house lifted into the sky by countless colourful balloons: an image that became something of a symbol of imagination itself. The next step was to push fantasy beyond another boundary: that of the human mind. That was the moment for Inside Out, where our emotions took on personalities of their own. And so, having given a face to Joy, Anger, Fear and their companions, Pete Docter and Pixar could only raise the bar still further, giving shape to the human soul itself.
From this visionary idea from Docter's "pen" came the Great Beyond, the Great Before and the Astral Plane imagined for Soul. Ethereal, cosmic places in which to situate souls before and after life on Earth. Demanding challenges, faced with the secular, zen approach that characterises all of Pixar's output and that focuses on universal, politically correct messages.
One could say that Soul contains two films in one. The first is anchored in reality and set in an incredibly realistic New York. The second is imaginative and fantastical, set in the Great Before and realised with a highly original graphic design that brings two-dimensional, three-dimensional, sinuous and angular creatures to the screen. The spindly characters of Jerry and Terry reminded everyone of the celebrated Linea created by Italian cartoonist and animator Osvaldo Cavandoli.
Figures whose stylised, one-dimensional faces also called to mind the celebrated Cubist portraits of Pablo Picasso, with images in which art meets the most advanced 3D technology. So much so that, in order to produce these innovative animations, the technical team had to integrate new commands into their programmes. The result is the sensation of seeing something new and striking, even with the references and inspirations already mentioned. Among these, the creatives also list two other profoundly different influences: the work of English artist and satirical cartoonist Ronald Searle and the animation of the 1961 Disney classic One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Music has always played an important role in Pixar films (above all in Coco), but in Soul it becomes a fundamental part of the narrative and indeed a metaphor for the film itself. Music, and more specifically jazz. The defining trait of this genre, deeply tied to the American context, is built on the ability to improvise and to seize stimuli and inspiration, making the most even of "wrong notes." An approach that reflects well the message Soul wishes to convey: that of knowing how to take life for what it is, improvising and enjoying the "journey."
A nuance the filmmakers captured by listening to anecdotes told by legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock about his experience with Miles Davis, who was able to find val