As a Christmas gift and the culmination of a difficult year, we get the new Pixar film, after the small setback of his previous film “Onward”, a light entertainment without the transcendence capacity of the animation company’s masterpieces. “Soul” is at the level of the best, noticing the hand of Pete Docter, one of the great creators of Pixar and responsible for jewels such as “Up” and “From the reverse.” In fact, there are some parallels with this last mentioned feature film, such as being able to transfer abstract concepts to images with great ease (in this case all the figures that guard the afterlife and the paradise where souls are created). A complex argument that explains important moral values, psychological arguments about personality and character and a background where death is normalized, as happened in Lee Unklich’s “Coco” that together with Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton would form a second line in importance in Pixar , led by John Lasseter and, increasingly close, Pete Docter.
Here we have a jazz musician who, while waiting for his big break in a band, teaches at a high school. The day he gets a steady job, he also passes an audition to play with a star at a major club in New York. In his existential joy he dies in an accident but does not want to go to the afterlife yet, so, by means of certain tricks, he has just mentored a soul that does not wish to go to earth. From here on we have a huge range of emotions, with an admirable development, a prodigious rhythm and characters where everyone is nice, which is not easy. And more in a movie, supposedly, for children, although I am not sure what the recommended age is because some passages and parliaments can escape the minds of the little ones. Those who are sure to enjoy will be adolescents and adults, who as usual are one of the population segments that “Soul” is aimed at, with a strategy that has almost always worked at Pixar, providing colors and creatures that fit well with what the infants of the house want to see and scripts and dialogues full of references, a sense of humor and intelligence that make one not feel guilty, when taking children, nephews or younger relatives to the cinema. In this case, Disney + has decided to premiere “Soul” directly on its pay channel, a risky formula that in general has worked well and that it will surely repeat in the future, given the enormous competition between the different ones, and each time more numerous, “streaming” operators.
“Soul”, on its own merits, becomes one of the best premieres of this unfortunate 2020, a year that has also revolutionized the way of consuming feature films, since many destined for large theaters have had to be reconfigured to be able to see them for the first time time in the comfort of your living room. A way, that although it is true that it is simple, the essence of a large screen, surround sound and the magic of enjoying, for a short space of time, the escape from everyday problems with a few strangers is lost. “Soul” dignifies the cinema and is also a recommended product for music lovers and music lovers that you, my dear reader, will be if you frequently visit this specialized magazine. Jazz usually works in 35mm, from the classics of the 40s or 50s to masterpieces like Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”, to the last series on the subject that we saw this year, such as “The Eddy”. Here there is not that tormented spirit of the jazz interpreter, but there are a few of the obsessions of those geniuses dedicated to composing from scratch, the mathematics of sound, the inspiration in each improvisation. The art for the art. As it usually happens in Pixar and it happens in “Soul”.
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