Directed by Sophie Barthes
Writer/director Sophie Barthes read an old copy of Jung’s ‘Modern Man in Search of a Soul’. According to Jung, the burden of our soul inhibits us from living the totality of our being. The night she finished the book, she had a dream that she was waiting in line to see a doctor, holding a box like everyone else waiting, which contained her soul. Ahead of her was Woody Allen who had just discovered that his soul was the shape and size of a chick pea, and he was ranting that there must have been some mistake. At this point, Bathes looked down into her container to check the shape of her soul, only to wake up at that precise moment.
Paul Giamatti plays himself in this surreal black comedy sub-titled ‘a soul-searching comedy’ that is based around her dream. In the middle of rehearsals for Checkov’s Uncle Vanya, Giamatti feels emotionally drained and, after consulting the Yellow Pages, decides to get his soul extracted and stored at the clinic of Dr Flintstein (David Strathairn). Giamatti discovers that he can’t live or act without a soul and rents the soul of a Russian poet as it appears that there is quite a black market in souls from Russia. When he decides that he would really like his own soul back, he finds that it is missing and eventually locates it in Russia, though why anyone would want an American soul is a mystery. Eventually, Nina (Dina Korzun) who is a soul mule, illicitly transporting souls from Russia, helps him out.
The characters are absolutely deadpan and matter-of-fact as this Theatre of the Absurd mixes comedy, satire, irony, melancholy and tragedy in with healthy amounts of social commentary. The laughter is continual as the preposterous antics continue to keep you enthralled.
Lezly Herbert
