[Lee Jong-gil's Movie Reading] What Kind of Life Do I Truly Wish For?

Disney Animation 'Soul'
The Story Unfolding After Falling into the 'Before Birth World' Due to an Accident
A Journey of Modern People Unable to Live Their Own Lives Finding Their True Selves

The movie Soul is an animation that contemplates the meaning of life. Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a music teacher working at a middle school in New York, USA, is offered a permanent position and finds himself in a dilemma. This is because he has long dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. Just as an opportunity arises to join a famous jazz band, he is overwhelmed with joy. While strutting down the street as if dancing, he falls into a manhole.

Joe stands on the stairs leading to the "Far Beyond," the path where dead humans return as souls. He cannot give up the jazz stage and tries to run back but falls into the "Before Birth World." This is a world where unborn little souls engage in various activities to discover their interests and form their personalities. He works as a mentor advising souls so they can receive their "Earth Pass" and constantly looks for a chance to return to Earth.

The story, reminiscent of Stairway to Heaven (1946), continuously questions the reason for life. By adding the unique world of the "Before Birth World," it even discusses the qualifications to be born as a human. Although the theme is complex, the way it is explained is simple and concise. It sets a busy modern person living a repetitive daily life as the protagonist to create empathy and places a mirror reflecting their footprints to help them gather their fragmented identity.

Like Joe, many people set earthly goals and try hard but fail to achieve what they intend. Some things happen regardless of will or effort. What one desperately wishes for may forever elude them. Instead, unwanted events occur, and sometimes life’s direction is determined by misfortune. Life unfolds with that much uncertainty.

At the moment Joe is certain he has grasped a definite opportunity, he passes away. In fact, nothing is more certain than death. Humans live according to the framework demanded by the society they are born into. Usually, people think they live their lives autonomously, but most live according to socially approved ways of thinking and lifestyles.

German existential philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889?1976) defined this way of life as inauthentic existence. It means living not one’s own unique life but living as the world wants. In this case, the subject is not oneself but an anonymous someone. One enjoys as the world enjoys and sees and judges as someone else sees and judges.

Professor Koo In-hoe of the Graduate School of Life Sciences at Catholic University explained in his book Philosophical Reflections on Death that "In inauthentic life, all beings including other humans are usually instrumentally understood as to whether they fit the purpose one pursues or not," and "In everyday life, beings primarily appear as tools."

The only soul in the "Before Birth World" who refuses to go to Earth, "22" (voiced by Tina Fey), perceives this structural problem. Even when mentors such as Abraham Lincoln (1809?1865), Mahatma Gandhi (1869?1948), and Mother Teresa (1910?1997) cling to her and explain the reason for life, she refuses to accept it. She has not found a goal to devote her passion, symbolized by a flame.

Soul reaches out, saying that the flame is not the purpose of life. It emphasizes that when one is ready to be born, the goal will naturally be fulfilled. It argues that all instrumental beings gain their meaning within the whole related to purpose.

Heidegger taught that our world is structured around the ultimate purpose humans pursue, and each person lives in a different world according to what they ultimately seek. In the depths of the "Before Birth World," there are souls lost in ecstasy and shadow souls lost due to excessive attachment. Joe and "22" overcome their differences and save each other by freeing themselves from prejudices and preconceptions derived from worldly experiences. They will probably live discovering and learning each moment with wonder and awe, like a newborn.