Oh well
Former U.S. President Barack Obama, who has a wide range of interests, spends a lot of time watching movies and television works on weekdays. At the end of each year, he will also select the best works he recognized that year and recommend them to everyone. On his recently released 2020 list, there is an animation that is prominently listed, that is, "Soul", produced by Disney and produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and will be unveiled on Christmas Day.
"Psychic Journey" was released on December 25
Originally, for Pixar Animation Studios, 2020 should have been a harvest year: the production cycle of a Pixar animated feature film is generally as long as five years, so it usually only launches one in a year, and this year there are two new films, "1/2 Magic" and "Psychic Journey".
Unfortunately, people are not as good as the sky, the former was released at the beginning of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in North America, can only be hastily ended, the result of refreshing Pixar's box office low. "Psychic Journey" was originally planned to be released in North American theaters on November 20, but the development of the local epidemic has not been optimistic, and Disney Group finally decided to remove it from the theater line and change it to december 25 on its streaming platform Disney+. For a carefully produced 3D animated film, watching it on a 2D screen is still "overkill". In contrast, Chinese audiences are much luckier to walk into theaters on Christmas Day and enjoy this heart-warming work off the big screen.
Stills from "Psychic Journey"
Joey, the protagonist of "Journey of the Mind", dreams of becoming a jazz pianist, but for a long time, he has never had a head start, and can only make a living by working as a temporary music teacher in middle school. On the day he was expected to become a full teacher, the famous Jazz Band in New York asked him to take a substitute class, and he decided to seize the opportunity no matter what. Unexpectedly, the over-excited Joey overturned the ship in the gutter and encountered an accident, struggling on the line of life and death. Seeing that his soul will be sent to Elysium, the reluctant Joey mistakenly hits and stumbles into the "Birthplace",where the souls of the reserves specially trained to go to Earth are located, and mistakenly becomes the teacher of the stubborn "Twenty-Two".
It turns out that every reserve soul must find its own personality, characteristics, preferences, and most importantly, the spark of life, in order to become a complete soul. But the twenty-two who had been taught by Copernicus, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and other great men never found a "spark", had no interest in to be a tossed, and became a latecomer.
Joey had originally planned to give Twenty-Two the qualification to go to Earth first, and then grab it and use it on himself, but he tried his best, but he failed to arouse Twenty-Two's enthusiasm for going to the human world. The two had to walk up the left side door, who expected that a careless, unworldly twenty-two entered Joey's body, and Joey's soul entered the body of a cat, and his meow could only be understood by twenty-two.
Therefore, Joey can only guide the twenty-two in his body how to behave and how to fight for the opportunity to perform. In the process, Twenty-Two has a new understanding of life, which makes the two contradictory. Can Joey's soul return to his body? Does he still have a chance to live? Where will twenty-two go? Let's not continue spoilers here, you may wish to leave a little suspense to make the movie more fascinating.
Just like the film's director Peter Doggett's previous films, "Flying House Tour" and "Mind Agent Team", which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, "Journey of the Mind" is also a fairy tale for adults, but at the same time taking into account the interesting setting that children can also understand; the theme is not conveyed through preaching, but moves you with the story itself.
According to Doggett himself, this unique idea has been brewed for 23 years. "(The idea) comes from my son, who is now 23 years old but has had his own personality since he was born." Doggett said, "Where did this come from?" I had always thought that human personality developed through interaction with the world, but it was clear that we were born with a unique and concrete perception of ourselves. ”
In the film, fantasy and reality are constructed in perfect harmony. We cannot choose whether we are born human or not, nor can we know the world after death, but we can decide how to live. Thus, in "Journey of the Mind", the unknown becomes a stage to exert the imagination: the world after death is designed as a black and white minimalist futuristic style, and the world before death is as colorful as a spring garden; the effect of 3D is to make the audience feel immersed.
In the view of art director Steve Pilcher, the key to shaping "where you are born" is a special softness. "Almost everything is a little blurry," he says, "and everything is very soft and ethereal, and some are transparent, with very light, soft, low-saturation colors." We want to make sure that souls fit perfectly into the world, but don't disappear, so they'll be a little brighter than their surroundings. ”
According to executive producer Dan Scanlon, Doggett's iconic imagination is fully reflected in "Where He Was Born": "You can see from Peter's previous films 'Flying House' and 'The Mind's Agents' that he loves animation and likes to push the limits of animation expression. In Journey to the Mind, he and the creative team strive to go further than ever before, trying to show the audience a world they have never seen before through the form of the Psychic Academy. For Peter and the creative team, the restraint required to show something new is more than the bells and whistles. The world of birth is simple, full of bold, beautiful shapes, abstract buildings never seen before in reality. It takes courage to express ideas with less, but if done well, it can achieve the effect of lifting weights. ”
The reality is modern Metropolis, including the yellow buses that run through the streets, the jazz bars that run in the basement, and the crowds of traffic lights on street corners. "As soon as we got into jazz, we started exploring New York City." Peter Doggett said, "Although jazz did not originate in New York, New York is the jazz capital of the United States. It is also a cultural hub, full of immigrants and influences from around the world, providing a rich and vibrant backdrop for the film. ”
"But the decision wasn't just for musical considerations." Co-director Kemp Bowles, who grew up in New York, added, "It's out of the dynamism in this setting." Journey of the Mind is about the meaning of life and our connection to others. In New York, people collide with each other every day, and diversity is evident on every street. There really isn't another place in the world that can match it. ”
The theme of the film is to ask "what exactly shaped the real you". Many times, similar themes are treated as inspirational films in which chicken blood and chicken soup fly together, telling you to fight tirelessly to achieve your dreams, but "Journey of the Mind" is a work that has nothing to do with success. It reminds you that as you run all the way to your dreams, don't forget those mundane moments that once touched you.
Director Peter Doggett put it in his own words: "I remember one day when I was riding a bicycle, I stopped to pick a raspberry. It was warmed by the sun and was the tastiest raspberry I've ever eaten. I still vividly remember that almost meaningless moment. Any transcendent moment in our lives can define the meaning of our lives. Journey of the Mind is a film that wants to broaden people's minds from a single focus to a broader way of thinking about the meaning of life and what we can gain for life. ”
In addition to the story and theme, the music is also a crucial part of the film. Both the jazz score and the jazz piano performances in the film come from Grammy-nominated Jon Baptiste, and even The movements of Joey's fingers as he plays the piano are captured based on his playing. Trent Renault and Artigos Rose of the Nine Inch Nails performed and interpreted all the music of the soul world. In terms of voice cast, Jamie Fox, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for "The King of Souls", gave Joey a voice, and the naughty twenty-two was played by Tina Fei, a comedic talent who can write and direct.
Although as mentioned earlier, the new work happened to be released in time for the end of the year, it is a pity for the hard-working production party Pixar. But for those of us who have survived 2020, we may be able to understand the connotation of the movie "Spiritual Journey" more than at any other time. We know better than we have experienced this epidemic that tasting a piece of pizza when hungry, picking up a fallen leaf at dusk or walking into a movie theater is not a daily routine, but a moment to cherish.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Ding Xiao