Possessed or not?
A man collapses at work. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him, so he’s sent to his father, who lives in a place that’s isolated. The sister of the man is also there. One day when the father comes home, he finds his daughter lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It’s the son who has killed her. Now the father is willing to do everything to help his son. He must hide the body of his dead daughter, and he also must hide his son so that no one else can come close to him. It seems that he has been possessed by an evil demon. Or is he just crazy?
Soul is first and foremost a beautiful and quiet movie. There aren’t many characters here, and they don’t speak much. The relationship between father and son is interesting. They have had a troubled past, and the father is willing to do everything to get his son back.
Is the son possessed by a demon, or is he mentally ill? The first thing I thought was that he was deeply depressed and became violent. When people are possessed by an evil demon, the person usually swears a lot, and you see changes in their facial expressions. You don’t see this in Soul, and we don’t hear swearing. The possessed son is calm and calculated. It was for me a little hard to swallow that he was possessed by an evil demon. Let’s blame it on Hollywood!
It’s interesting to follow the father who’s willing to do anything for his son, even if the son has killed his sister. But as I said, they have a troubled past, and it’s easy to understand the father, even if he goes too far when he’s helping his son.
Soul is a different movie about demon possession. It has a really slow pace, but that helps build up the tension and atmosphere. The landscape is beautiful, and I also got the feeling that the director was inspired by Lars von Triers, Antichrist. The isolated location, the madness, and the fog.
Soul is probably not a movie for everyone if you are impatient and expect a lot of blood and gore. Soul is rather the opposite that tells a story about family ties, and how far some parents are willing to go to protect their kids, even if they have committed a murder. So be warned, this isn’t a movie for the restless. It’s a slow-burner of a movie.