Soul (2020) - Live It!

 

★★★☆☆

Pixar has given me a lot of good memories, warmth and encouragement ever since 'Toy Story' series, though its mother company Disney has been such a hypocrite apparently praising morality and humanity over interests and benefits in films they make on one hand, while on the other, just doing the opposite!

Pixar's 'Inside Out' and 'Finding Nemo' are the most incredible to me. 'Soul', their latest effort, is not really about music or Jazz so you don't have to worry that it may turn you off if you're not into stuff like that. It's in fact about the things you crave for, your dreams, goals, targets, ambitions, resolutions and so on and so forth, and how you should look at them. Yet I don't think it's going to turn you on so much either, because the journey itself doesn't seem that exhilarating and imaginative after all, compared with what they've already done before. Still it's a decent treat to kick off 2021 because y'know Pixar can never seem to fail to please and inspire to a certain extent! There's always a moment or two that is able to get you deep down somehow. 'Soul' too, has such little magic but it's by no means magical!

The film reminds me of what one of my Buddhist teachers once said, 'by the time dream actually comes true, your previous version of what you had dreamt is already modified. Another problem is once that comes true, the dream is not going to stop. Many times things that you dare not dream could come true too.' Indeed there's no such a thing as an ultimate end in life, or more precisely, the circle of life, where you can really stop and rest forever. Life's of only experiences and routines going on and on. There's no purpose for living because living itself is already the purpose. There's a metaphor in the film saying, a fish looking for the ocean to swim in is already swimming in the ocean, but it believes that it's just water. Pathetically, we're exactly that fish ceaselessly looking for something that we already have as a matter of fact!

Where do we go after death? According to 'Soul', it's either the 'Great Beyond', which isn't mentioned much though, or the 'Great Before', where dead men's souls gather, pick up their 'sparks' and get ready for another life back on Earth. That' s like the reincarnation in Buddhism, more or less, but Buddhists don't believe there's a permanent soul to reincarnate. Even the reincarnation itself is not permanent! And the 'spark' thing is like what your mind longs for, which gets to decide where and what you're going to be reborn into. So watch your mind, and be careful what you wish for. If you have little control of your mind, you basically have no say where you're going after death!