Cold Souls

Ridammi la mia anima! Per i pitagorici l'anima era immortale e per via di una fantomatica colpa originaria era condannata a reincarnarsi. Il corpo come prigione dell'anima. L'anima garante della matrice perfetta dell'uomo, l'anima come armonia che risponde all'imperfezione intrinseca dell'uomo. Per Platone l'anima era scissa in tre elementi distinti, il cavallo buono [...] Vai alla recensione »

Il film inizia bene. Sophie Barthes ci presenta i personaggi aprendo la finzione sulla scena teatrale. Paul recita "Zio Vania" di Checov ma non trova la giusta distanza per interpretarlo. Sembra di trovarci in "Opening night" di John Cassavetes. Paul decide così di vendere la sua anima ad un'agenzia specializzata. Passa una settimana senz'anima, e sua moglie se ne [...] Vai alla recensione »

Ce n'est pas sans une certaine autodérision que Paul Giamatti, l'acteur de Sideways ou de films de Woody Allen, de Todd Solondz, joue ici le rôle d'un comédien nommé Paul Giamatti. Interpréter Oncle Vania de Tchekhov l'a plongé dans une grave dépression lorsqu'il entend parler d'une Banque des âmes qui soulage les esprits tourmentés. Un scientifique extrait l'âme du corps de ses patients, la stocke [...] Vai alla recensione »

In the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" If the disciples offered a reply to this, it is not recorded. In any case, the first question is rhetorical, although some of us will take a lifetime to discover, to our consternati [...] Vai alla recensione »

If anyone looks as if he might be in the possession of a troubled soul, it’s the actor Paul Giamatti. With his doubting eyes and gently defeated posture, he tends to come across as a man carrying a burden, though one not necessarily or wholly of his making. You can almost see the distress resting heavy and hard on his sloped shoulders, pushing out against his ovoid head, tugging at his lower eyelids [...] Vai alla recensione »

Somewhere between the rabbit-hole absurdist comedy of Charlie Kaufman and a navel-gazing Woody Allen film is the somberly humorous indie "Cold Souls" from writer-director Sophie Barthes. Inspired by Jungian writings, moody sci-fi and today's meta-approach to celebrity, Barthes cast bug-eyed, heroically slumped actor Paul Giamatti as himself, a noted thespian stymied by an inner turmoil that's derailing [...] Vai alla recensione »

You'll laugh till it hurts at Cold Souls, a comedy of shocking gravity starring Paul Giamatti as a neurotic actor named Paul Giamatti. He is rehearsing Uncle Vanya and feeling the weight of Chekhov's Russian sorrow. Then he sees an ad in The New Yorker: Visit Dr. Flintstein (a serenely crazed David Strathairn), and your soul can be extracted and held in storage.