Where does the soul come from and where does it go? Pixar is looking for an answer

In “Spirit”, Docter continues what he started in his previous productions which have helped to strengthen Pixar’s position, in recent years, as a benchmark operator for digital animation effects and dazzling techniques, and at the same time, as a core to present an intercultural storytelling that simulates the concerns of modern man in his search for meaning.

In the movie Heart and Heart, Docter and his team devoted themselves to dissecting the brain, deconstructing the concepts of memory, personality formation, and the importance of negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and fear, as tools to reinforce joy.

In “Spirit,” which he wrote in association with Mike John and Kemp Bauer, he provides insight into the human psyche, in its perpetual confusion between striving for its purpose of being on earth and enjoying the little ones. pleasures of life.

The film presents a cruel and funny approach to the absurdity of death, of that inevitable moment which puts an end to the plans of the man, and all of his dreams, which he thinks to live forever.

The film thus finds an old philosophical and theological dilemma: what should I do if I know that I am going to die today? They say that the happiest person is the one who decides to go on with their day without ever changing anything.

The subject is thorny and complex, even terrifying, especially since the film is being screened in a “special” period of human life, as all projects are on hold and all objectives are on hiatus, due to the epidemic, and death hangs in the air.

However, even if the film narrows down the current time context, its problem remains: will we have a second chance after death, or are the short years we live on Earth all we have to achieve on our own?

Spirit attempts to address this existential crisis through the story of the main character, Joe Gardner, part-time pianist and elementary school music teacher. Joe doesn’t seem happy with his scheduled date, as he seeks fame and fame in the jazz arena and waits for the right opportunity.

One day the beloved’s dream comes true: he gets the chance to play in a famous jazz quartet in New York City and admires the well-known frontman of the group. Unfortunately, he falls into one of the city’s tunnels, before the show.

As Joe falls into a sewer pit, the film leaves his body on the ground, and takes off with his soul, taking an ethereal form, preserving his glasses and hat. Rising up a staircase suspended in space, along with other souls, they prepare to merge into a huge white mass of light.

When Joe realizes he’s dead, he “desperately” tries to get back into his body and throws himself into the void. Instead of returning to Earth, he lands in another ethereal place, the filmmakers tell us his name is “pre-great,” where unborn spirits receive workshops and training to prepare them for life.

Many films have sought to visualize angels or the creator in various creative forms, and in “Spirit” Pixar presents a new form of metaphysical beings believed to participate in systems of moving souls.

In the “pre-big”, Joe does not meet angels, beings from Greek mythology, nor magicians, nor geniuses, nor with any concept that we are used to in the metaphysics shoot. Rather, he finds patrons or advisers, whom he calls “Jerry,” whose shapes resemble Picasso’s paintings and resemble a simplified digital representation of the spirit of the universe.

These creatures are similar to the computer programs or robotic aids that guide us while driving, except that they have universal wisdom, and see that the pursuit of a goal, and the pursuit of professional success, is not than a “primitive” understanding of the true spark of life.

Jerry gives hero Joe the task of forming a soul, after some of history’s most famous teachers have been unable to convince her of life on Earth. Perhaps the name of this spirit “22” is related to its number, which means it was created a long time ago. Her problem is that she’s a cynic who doesn’t want to be born, because she doesn’t like the idea of ​​life on Earth.

Joe agrees with “22” to flee, because he still wants to come back to Earth, and because she wants to get rid of the training. However, something is wrong and the spirit of “22” enters her comatose body in a hospital. As for Joe’s soul, it settles in a cat!

While Joe is busy trying to get his body to the party, directing the little soul to shower, shave, and dress, 22 stubborn and simple pleasures in life, like gazing at falling leaves and savoring the taste pizza, discover 22 enduring pleasures in life.

Experience “22” reveals to us the difficulty of living in a body, and how this sometimes turns into a burden. At the same time, the approach of death does not affect Joe’s understanding of life, on the contrary, he pursues a frenzied search for his passion, ultimately coming to the conclusion that the meaning of life is elsewhere.

In the film Spirit, souls live in four places: the earth, the post-grand, the pre-grand, as well as an outer region, between the world of the living and the dead, which is visited only by those who are ecstatic by their work, who are separated from reality or who are lost in a coma.

In this region of tipping, the film presents a metaphor for the beauty of passion when it is soul upliftment, and its downsides when it transforms into destructive energy that prevents souls from enjoying life to achieve. professional success or mortal glory.

The nature of the soul and its journey in life and the hereafter, and its positions between reward, punishment and salvation, is a very sensitive issue in religious ideologies, and it is not easy to tackle. without making anyone angry, according to what director Peter Docter said in an interview.

Was the soul originally present before a person was born or was it formed with the body of the fetus in the womb? Does his life follow a straight line, born, live, then pass to the second life? Or does he experience continuous cycles of successive lives, as some religions believe, before breaking free from the curse of the body?

Aside from the question of reckoning and annihilation or the immortality of souls, the soul itself is a gelatinous concept that is not clear: does it take the form of the body of its carrier? Are they, as most movies portray them, ghostly creatures with a white aura? Does he have weight?

To answer these questions, the filmmakers turned to religious and spiritual advisers, of different religions and ideological lines. The film drew its approach from various religious traditions, to create a plot that encapsulates several religions, believing that we are part of a great spirit and that we should give up the pursuit of success and fame, in exchange for profiting from small ones. moments of life.

They also had to make some difficult artistic choices, so how to draw the soul if it has no shape, and how to represent it on the screen so that it becomes clear that it belongs to this or that person’s body. ? The filmmakers chose to film the spirits in the form of an airgel, or “airgel”, a condensed gel used for thermal insulation.

We asked Soha Odeh, an Iraqi journalist, how would she have acted if she had found herself in the shoes of the hero?

What stopped Suha the most about the film was that “the hero got to see her body as a tool for someone else’s soul. Maybe a similar experience will inspire us to renew our outlook on life and to change our sense of things and people around us. “

Zina Al-Khair, a feminist student from Syria. She says that the film’s idea of ​​the afterlife and the nature of the soul doesn’t concern her much and that she isn’t looking for an answer.

She adds, “But suppose I ask a lot of questions, including: Do I live to know my purpose in this life, or do I have to know my purpose in advance to live? And what about people? who decide not to live? Isn’t that also their right? I think the film wanted to communicate. ” The idea that we should live our life to the fullest, but to what extent is that possible if we are literally fighting over a crumb of bread?

Mohamed Daher, a Lebanese architect, believes that the idea for the film may not be easy for children to take in, but on a personal level he felt identified with the story of the hero who spends his life in a work that he does not like, but which is close to his field of passion, in search of meaning in his life.

Some might wonder why Pixar decided to make an entertaining film on the most difficult subject in history? How to answer similar questions according to the age of all viewers, especially the youngest?

Perhaps the best storytelling option the film has resorted to isn’t to seek deep answers to these thorny questions, but to approach them with a fresh eye, as if they were the eye of a a curious child who imagines his own explanation of a world he does not understand.

So the film simulates the young child inside each of us, and finds him asking: When did my life get like this? How long will I live? When will I make my old dreams come true? Do I have to give it up for a job and security of livelihood? Or keep trying?

This new intact eye may be what adults watching the movie need and identify with the defeat and grief of the main character.