“Soul” Is Good at Jazzing Up Your Day

Release Date：Dec/25/2020

Genre：Animation/Adventure/Comedy/Family/Fantasy/Music

Director：Pete Docter、Kemp Powers

Cast：Jamie Foxx、Tina Fey、Richard Ayoade、Angela Bassett

Viola's Rating：8.8

Although Disney and Pixar’s latest feature film “Soul” was scheduled to be released on Christmas day, 2020, due to COVID-19, people in the US are only able to watch it on Disney+. Thankfully, “Soul” is not a film that asks for a big screen, but it does require you to open your ears and enjoy the jazz music along with the story.

As Pixar’s very first flick featuring an African-American protagonist, this adventurous, animated comedy tells the story of a New York jazz pianist, Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx). After landing the gig of a lifetime, Joe suddenly finds himself trapped in a strange land between Earth and the afterlife.

Since “Soul” discusses the meaning and the nature of “souls”, the mental state “flow state” is mentioned in the motion picture. “Flow state” is often called “in the zone” in positive psychology, and examples of applications are seen in education, gaming, music, religion, sports, etc. Not everyone experienced a flow state before, so through Joe fully immersing himself in playing the piano a couple of times, “Soul” gives the audience a feeling of what flow state is like.

State of flow appears especially with improvisational soloists, and improvisational solo is a critical characteristic of jazz. Jazz is the core element of “Soul”, or we should say jazz is the soul of “Soul”. The crew recruited jazz composer Jon Batiste to compose a bunch of original jazz songs for the movie, and the voice cast for Joe is Jamie Foxx, the leading actor of “Ray”, who also plays the piano very well. Therefore, throughout “Soul”, jazz is everywhere, and if you are a jazz lover, “Soul” is indeed an audio feast.

Actually, “Soul” not only talks about what happens “before” life, but also what’s important “during” life. We all encounter different mentors in different phases in our lives, and they make impacts on a massive scale. In fact, “Soul” tells us that mentors don’t have to be people, everything could inspire us, be the sparks in our lives.

Aside from the abovementioned themes, “Soul” also discusses the purpose of life. Usually, we believe that people need an ambition, a mission to work for, which is true, but it shouldn’t be the only purpose we have for life. People need to be flexible, and just like one of the characters says, if we truly jazz up our everyday lives, a large number of unexpected opportunities will open up for us.

Before watching “Soul”, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that jazz is Joe’s spark in life. It’s not wrong, if you will, but more important is what inspires us to live a fruitful life. It’s impossible for us to live for one single thing, and that’s the key message “Soul” wants to give moviegoers.

All in all, “Soul” is indeed an amazing picture that’s good at jazzing up its audience’s day, and tears will stream down your face before you even realize.

Picture Credit:IMDb