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Image courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films Sophie Barthes had a dream. A dream about a doctor’s office. Pretty ordinary as far as dreams go, right? Sophie thought hers was too … until she looked around the waiting room in her dream and saw that she and all the other patients (including Woody Allen) were each holding individual boxes containing their extracted souls. Oops. Guess that’s what happens when you read Carl Jung right before going to bed. Of course, Sophie woke up before she saw her own soul, but not without remembering enough of her odd dream to turn it into her first feature length film, Cold Souls.
Now, Barthes may not have been able to get the real Woody Allen for her film, but she ended up with the next best thing – Paul Giamatti. In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti (i.e. a fictionalized version of himself) who is struggling with his latest role in a theater production of “Uncle Vanya.” Ironically, it’s not that Paul isn’t feeling his character. He’s feeling it too much. It's literally weighing him down. So much so in fact, that Paul decides to visit "Soul Storage," a high-tech company that extracts, freezes, and stores people’s souls. After a brief meeting with Dr. Flintstein (David Strathaim), Paul decides to have his soul removed, and is surprised to learn it’s the size of a chickpea.
Much to Paul’s dismay, his newfound “soullessness” doesn’t exactly enhance his acting career like he thought it would. His director (Michael Tucker) wasn’t too happy about Paul’s sudden change in portrayal of Uncle Vanya that turned the character into what can only be described as the crass love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Ron Jeremy. Paul also notices some other unpleasant side effects from being “soulless.” When his embarrassing lack of social etiquette and inability to have sex finally piss off his wife (Emily Watson), Paul returns to Dr. Flintstein and asks for his soul back.
Obviously, the underlying premise of the film is that a person’s soul is just like any other organ in the human body. It can be removed or inserted by a machine. No muss. No fuss. Or, as Dr. Flintstein so elegantly puts it, he can either “de-soul the body or disembody the soul.” Souls can also be anonymously donated, swapped for other souls, or even shipped overseas. In the film, souls are a big business. How big? Big enough for a soul black market to exist in Paul’s crazy little mixed up world. Later, when Paul finds himself an unfortunate victim of “soul-trafficking,” he journeys to Russia in order to find his lost soul.
Cold Souls is starting to sound like an existential Charlie Kauffman film, isn’t it? True, there are certain parallels between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Barthes’ fledgling film, especially in the understated, low-tech removal process. It also brings to mind Being John Malkovich wherein the lead actor plays himself. Yet, where Kauffman tends to wallow in dramatic, intellectual insight, Barthes keeps a lighter tone by purposely focusing on the absurd nature of her existential subject matter. Paul can’t understand the inner workings of his soul until he is able to step back and look at himself from the outside (in a very humorous way).
Once in St. Petersburg, Russia, you finally begin to realize that the real meaning of Cold Souls lies in Paul’s journey rather than the arrival of his epiphany. Why? Up until that point in the movie, we’re only given deceptive glimpses of the Russians involved in this soul-trafficking. Nina, (Dina Korzun) the soul mule, (i.e. transporter) starts off as a femme fatale but finishes as something entirely different. Even the characters of Astrov (Armand Schultz, II) and his wife Sveta (Katheryn Winnick) initially come across as formidable forces, yet fizzle out without so much as a wimper.
Instead of playing up the thriller elements of these shady Russians, Barthes focuses on the ethical dilemma of what will happen to the donor soul of the Russian poet Paul had implanted when his own soul went missing. Believe me, there’s a lot of soul searching going on for everyone concerned. But, since this is a comedy instead of a philosophy lesson, Cold Souls explores our own inabilities and refusal to look within ourselves and understand the core of our own existence. Just because we happen to know what Paul’s soul looks like doesn’t mean we know what lies within it. Who would have thought such a tiny little chickpea could feel so heavy?
Now, Barthes may not have been able to get the real Woody Allen for her film, but she ended up with the next best thing – Paul Giamatti. In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti (i.e. a fictionalized version of himself) who is struggling with his latest role in a theater production of “Uncle Vanya.” Ironically, it’s not that Paul isn’t feeling his character. He’s feeling it too much. It's literally weighing him down. So much so in fact, that Paul decides to visit "Soul Storage," a high-tech company that extracts, freezes, and stores people’s souls. After a brief meeting with Dr. Flintstein (David Strathaim), Paul decides to have his soul removed, and is surprised to learn it’s the size of a chickpea.
Much to Paul’s dismay, his newfound “soullessness” doesn’t exactly enhance his acting career like he thought it would. His director (Michael Tucker) wasn’t too happy about Paul’s sudden change in portrayal of Uncle Vanya that turned the character into what can only be described as the crass love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Ron Jeremy. Paul also notices some other unpleasant side effects from being “soulless.” When his embarrassing lack of social etiquette and inability to have sex finally piss off his wife (Emily Watson), Paul returns to Dr. Flintstein and asks for his soul back.
Obviously, the underlying premise of the film is that a person’s soul is just like any other organ in the human body. It can be removed or inserted by a machine. No muss. No fuss. Or, as Dr. Flintstein so elegantly puts it, he can either “de-soul the body or disembody the soul.” Souls can also be anonymously donated, swapped for other souls, or even shipped overseas. In the film, souls are a big business. How big? Big enough for a soul black market to exist in Paul’s crazy little mixed up world. Later, when Paul finds himself an unfortunate victim of “soul-trafficking,” he journeys to Russia in order to find his lost soul.
Cold Souls is starting to sound like an existential Charlie Kauffman film, isn’t it? True, there are certain parallels between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Barthes’ fledgling film, especially in the understated, low-tech removal process. It also brings to mind Being John Malkovich wherein the lead actor plays himself. Yet, where Kauffman tends to wallow in dramatic, intellectual insight, Barthes keeps a lighter tone by purposely focusing on the absurd nature of her existential subject matter. Paul can’t understand the inner workings of his soul until he is able to step back and look at himself from the outside (in a very humorous way).
Once in St. Petersburg, Russia, you finally begin to realize that the real meaning of Cold Souls lies in Paul’s journey rather than the arrival of his epiphany. Why? Up until that point in the movie, we’re only given deceptive glimpses of the Russians involved in this soul-trafficking. Nina, (Dina Korzun) the soul mule, (i.e. transporter) starts off as a femme fatale but finishes as something entirely different. Even the characters of Astrov (Armand Schultz, II) and his wife Sveta (Katheryn Winnick) initially come across as formidable forces, yet fizzle out without so much as a wimper.
Instead of playing up the thriller elements of these shady Russians, Barthes focuses on the ethical dilemma of what will happen to the donor soul of the Russian poet Paul had implanted when his own soul went missing. Believe me, there’s a lot of soul searching going on for everyone concerned. But, since this is a comedy instead of a philosophy lesson, Cold Souls explores our own inabilities and refusal to look within ourselves and understand the core of our own existence. Just because we happen to know what Paul’s soul looks like doesn’t mean we know what lies within it. Who would have thought such a tiny little chickpea could feel so heavy?
© Left From Hollywood 8/21/2009
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