DVD Voice

This weeks sees the release of Cold Souls, a film by Sophie Barthes starring and about Paul Giamatti. It seems that it is possible to extract your soul and store it. So a burdened Paul Giamaitti, who is playing himself in the film, is told about a service that does just that. And to help him do a stage play easier he decides to have his removed and stored. Only thing is that he discovers being soulless is not such a good idea. The service tries to convince him the soul removal has done what was promised he agrees to renting a Russian poet’s soul to help him play the part in a Chekov. It works, but he decides he wants his own soul back — after repeated comments from his wife that his skin felt “scaly” (when he had no soul) to that he smelled different and seemed different after he got the poet’s soul.

Going back to the clinic he finds that his soul is missing … perhaps they shipped it to the warehouse in New Jersey by mistake. Rather than spoil any more, I’ll let you watch it if you desire. I give it a good rating. Once it started I imagined how good I expected it to be, and it didn’t meet my expectations. It was enjoyable and opens more questions if you’ll let yourself think about them.

There is an article on VenusZine about the movie and the director and her ideas behind it.

Questions like: What is our soul? What does it look like? Do we need it? What happens if you “lose” your soul. Is the soul basically good or evil? Can a soul be dried up? Is it really possible to lose your soul? Do emotions or lack of them make up who you are as a person or is it something else? Would you swap souls with someone else to get away from the pain, emptiness, or worries that you think your soul has?

I think it does slightly reinforce the meaning that you should be happy with yourself. That looking back on your life there are lots of good things and good memories and you should relish those and the people who you share your life with.

The quote by David Strathairn who played Dr. Flintstein in the movie is a great one. “Now, have you ever visited the circus and seen one of these creatures standing quietly while tied to a small wooden stick? You see, when the elephant is young and relatively weak, it is tied to an immovable stick. So later, no matter how large and strong he becomes, he continues to believe that he cannot free himself. Many intelligent people are like circus animals. They never question their self-imposed limitations. And the soul can become just such a stick. They need to break the chains.” It is important to break free of those self-imposed limits, you just don’t do it by removing, disregarding, or destroying your soul.

Rated PG-13. 101 minutes (1 hour 41 minutes). Some profanity. Some total female nudity, you just see butt and boobs on a live model at an art studio.