Soul (2020)

I'm moving on in the same trend, probably already boring, to complain that I'm definitely not in the best mood for writing. Also when finding about "Soul", the title + description led immediately to the idea of a musical - the only movies area that I'm completely avoiding, with minor exceptions. On top of everything, "soul" is not among my favorite music, so I decided to ignore this. However, after repeatedly hearing that's the best animation of last year, I decided to move it in the minor exceptions category above. The first thing to say about it - "Frozen" fits probably much better with the musical genre than what we have here. And about soul music, that's really secondary behind the concept of a soul in the context of the movie.

In brief, we have a music teacher, who dreams of being part of a jazz band, and when finally the opportunity arises he fells into a manhole and he dies. Well, not really... because we're moving somewhere in an intermediate afterlife space, where the souls either move towards "the great beyond" after living, or towards "the great before" to find a new place on Earth. Well, our guy definitely dislikes the beyond option, and wants to get back to his piano in New York. And the only path seems to be through "the great before". Now, given my writing mood, I guess I said enough about the story.

Obviously the target of the movie is not in the range of PhD students in psychology for analyzing the perspectives of the afterlife concepts. Nevertheless, "Soul" is complex enough to not be labeled "childrens only". Moreover it's fresh - I didn't feel bored by material recycled from other movies (not that the idea of human soul inside of a cat is new, but I said I'm stopping with the spoilers :P). In a word, I'd qualify it as "nice". Maybe even too "nice" in the end, but these days that's actually good.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Den brysomme mannen (2006)

Busy month ... I'm gonna shorten the entry again, but at least now I have a movie option. "Den brysomme mannen" aka "The Bothersome Man" is a sort of dark comedy, with some surreal nuances a la Terry Gilliam, and which leaves a feeling of "unfinished" from one end to another ...

The movie has a pretty original start that's catchy enough to get you hooked for a while. After a short scene showing a man apparently jumping in front of a subway tram, the guy is presented as sole passenger in a bus which drops him in front of a hut in the middle of a wasteland. Where another guy ... after wrapping up a handmade "Welcome" banner leads the newcomer to his new residence. An apartment in a grey city, with people pretty much as grey, but apparently fully satisfied with their life. Well, for the new guy in town this doesn't seem to work. Ok ... enough with the details, or I'll end the movie.

I'll stick to the opinion that I'm on a total different wavelength than Norway's cinema. I keep trying periodically, but it doesn't work. If I remember well, the previous experience was "Hodejegerne" which I almost liked .. in the circumstances where the subject and the trailer were promising something certain for my typical preferences. Maybe my brain is just too wrecked these days to digest (again, in pieces, with breaks between) an attempt for an afterlife allegory, heaven vs. hell, or whatever was meant to represent what I've watched. I can't complain it wasn't original, but I can complain that it was as every production made there, just too dry for my taste.

Rating: 3 out of 5