Strange Journey Of The Soul: The Warm Ending Of 2020

There is no more suitable year-end movie than "journey of the mind" in 2020, when the world is full of misfortune. Director Peter doughter, who created the 2015 fire animated film "the secret service of the mind", and his dream team continue the challenge of virtualizing the abstract world. Last time, they embodied human joys and sorrows, creating a "intracranial world" that could interact seamlessly with the outside world. This time, they injected imaginative extension into the binary opposition framework of spirit and flesh, and completed a philosophical discussion in simple terms in the form of animation.

Pixar's works have been criticized for self repetition and growing younger in a period of time since Pixar became part of Disney. With the story of jazz musician Joey, the journey of the soul makes a beautiful public praise battle. The English film title only uses the word "soul", which not only refers to the main line of the story about "soul rebirth", but also emphasizes the important role played by jazz / soul music in the narration. It not only opens a big brain hole in the childlike world, but also densely lays various cultural, historical and political obstacles in the plot, so that the adult audience can smile with understanding from time to time.

The protagonist of the film, Joey, is an indefatigable jazz pianist. He dreams of entering the legendary jazz bar in New York to show his style. However, the appreciation of the outside world did not arrive, so he had to act as the temporary commander of the student association in a middle school. All of a sudden, good news came one day. The school promised him his official post, and the famous jazz band gave him a green eye and invited him to perform together. On this day, he accidentally fell into the sewer in the middle of the road and lost consciousness. After the soul out of the body, Joey came to a place between the soul and the body - the land before his death. Here, the physical souls who are about to plunge into the earth undergo various training and perfect their unique personality formula. Only one wearisome soul named 22, who does not know where his "spark" is, lingers in the place where he was born with a rebellious body and refuses to go to the world. By chance, Joey and No. 22 are mistakenly arranged together and become a pair of teachers and students in training, and their exploration of each other begins

As mentioned above, the main line of the story is based on the dual dimension, and the vision of the film is also made full use of in the two styles of moving. All the details of metropolitan New York City are presented on the screen in detail. The subway, bar, and even the iconic scaffolding of the streets are all reproduced one by one, thus completing a vivid sketch of the city. In the abstract place of life, the dreamy color matching and the simple character image make this imaginary world have both banter and mystery. The match between Joey and No. 22 was originally a systematic mistake, but the two completed the "feat" of mutual stimulation and mutual perfection. Here, Pixar skillfully sublimates the ultimate narrative of the story. The story doesn't just stay at the moment when Joey completes his jazz performance and completes his "reincarnation" on the 22nd. Instead, he carefully adds more rich bridge segments before the ending plot is about to go to the routine, so that the film breaks through the framework of binary opposition In the view of the world, the soul attached to the body is no longer the ultimate channel and single goal. The film uses Joey's self-examination after his first performance to guide the audience to think about how to proceed after finding the spark of life. Of course, Pixar's founders have also given their own answer here: if they don't know how to experience the present, even the fish will forget that they have been in the sea.

The four words "experience the present" seem to be a little bland, but put in the special context of 2020, I believe that it can give enough "soul blow" to the audience. This is also why this film can win so many audience's approval at the end of the year, and is cooked into a bowl of fragrant chicken soup. It seems that we Chinese audiences should be more fortunate to be in one of the few countries in the world who can enjoy the movie on the big screen.

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