*This article contains spoilers for Soul.

Pixar’s animated film Soul, which premiered in Korea on January 20, surpassed one million movie-goers in only 16 days. This is slower than previous releases like Toy Story 4 and Coco, but considering theaters have attracted an average of just one-tenth of their daily attendance nationally from the previous year due to COVID-19, the figure is encouraging. In the United States, the movie was released on Disney+ on December 25 and was streamed in 2.4 million households in the first two days. Soul has breathed life into a stagnant box office, and indeed the movie’s story investigates the importance of life itself. Ahead of an opportunity to make his life-long dream come true, middle school band teacher Joe (Jamie Foxx) has an unexpected accident, after which his soul crash-lands into the You Seminar, the world before existence otherwise known as the Great Before. Looking to cheat death, Joe meets 22 (Tina Fey), a soul who wants to stay unborn and never leave, and together the two of them search for their own “spark,” or key to their life, for their own reasons.

Soul shows how life’s brilliance originates from its connections and relationships. Every moment can be said to be part of a continuum because souls exist before life and continue to exist even after death. Because every moment that is lived remains indefinitely, life cannot be devalued by a mortality that accepts anyone can die at any time. At the same time, the film highlights how the spirit must naturally be tightly connected with every element of life that originates from the self. “Lost souls are obsessed by something that disconnects them from life,” says Moonwind (Graham Norton), providing an explanation about souls enveloped in darkness that is a resounding warning about those who do not take care of their ego. Moonwind and his crew help to rescue lost souls, while Joe and 22 grow to understand each other as they open up about their feelings and realize what they are seeking. Life emphasizes the connections we have with others in many different ways; it is made beautiful by the relationships we cultivate with ourselves and with others.

Because Soul is the first work Pixar has completed via remote work, this idea extends to living through the present-day pandemic. Last March, while COVID-19 was beginning to spread, the US was under shelter-in-place orders and the whole production team at the Emeryville studio had to disperse to their own homes and finish the remaining seven weeks’ work. What was first expected to be a June release was pushed back more than six months, and the team members were unable to see their finished work in theaters, nor could they attend any kind of official premiere. Even under these trying conditions, the film was finished and they were able to share their cinematic experience with audiences worldwide. Plans can fall apart at any time and when they do it is difficult to continue on and not give up. Even so, each person deals with their own share and they all intertwine to form a unique moment in life. This makes Soul a movie for everyone who tries to keep their morale even when they are unexpectedly hurt or sick. Soul is just the encouragement and support needed in a time of isolation and disconnect. The world where you used to head down the street without a mask on and share in all the excitement in a bustling jazz club became a movie, and then the curtain fell. As the post-credits scene seems to imply, it is time for viewers to stay at home and keep living the “new normal”—boring and stifling though it may be, but while discovering the important moments occasionally touched upon by movies.

TRIVIA

Pixar Animation Studios
Pixar first opened under Lucasfilm, the production company founded by director George Lucas. In 1979, Lucasfilm scouted Edwin Catmull, then the director of the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab, to found a computer division for the development of the kind of cutting-edge computer technology required by the movie industry, and in 1986 Steve Jobs took over this computer division to found an independent company named Pixar. Under their collaboration with Disney, Pixar first introduced CGI to traditional hand-drawn animation by developing the automated Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). After this, they produced Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo together, among other films. In 2006, Pixar was absorbed by Disney and became its subsidiary. Soul is Pixar’s 23rd movie and its first to have a Black character as the lead.