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1997(1st) ~ 2024(28th)
Puchion Choice : Feature
Sophie BARTHES
USA2008 101 min 35mm C Asian Premiere
The biggest stress for one living in this modern era can be none other than ‘oneself.’ What if one could replace oneself by transplanting someone else’s soul inside one’s body, like in a liver or kidney transplant? Would that salvage your life? It just might, with a little help from us, claims a bizarre company called ‘Soul Storage.’ Sophie BARTHES’s Cold Souls is based on such outrageous assumption. Paul (Paul GIAMATTI), a depressed stage actor struggling to get through each day, sees an ad in the New Yorker magazine claiming that a soul can be safely separated from the body and then stored. He locates the company to do just that, but soon discovers the body is an empty suit without the soul no matter how unsatisfying that may have turned out to be. Too late, though. His soul is on its way to Russia. Paul flies off to St. Petersburg with Nina, a depressed Russian soul-carrier, to re-claim his essence. The new-comer director quite competently handles this rather philosophical subject (think Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), adding a touch of black comedy. Enjoy the uncanny performance of GIAMATTI, the insightful directing, the cool, vast Russian landscape, and the warm perspective on the lost ‘cold souls.’ (CHOI Eun Yeong)