Soul (2020)
Everybody has a soul. Joe Gardner is about to find his.
Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.
In Soul, consciousness is carried by abstract concepts — a plane of “soul‑prep afterlife”. The story fights on E8/E10 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing purpose, identity, afterlife, bureaucracy, music.
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Thor (2011)E8/E10 · identity, purpose
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)E8/E10 · identity, purpose
Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017)E8/E10 · afterlife, bureaucracy
Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009)E8/E10 · bureaucracy, purpose
Alice in Wonderland (1999)E8/E10 · identity, purpose
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2007)E8/E10 · afterlife, bureaucracySame subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Also bends a rule of reality
Other films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
Bring the Soul: The Movie (2019)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
A Dog's Purpose (2017)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (1997)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Leo (2023)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Teen Spirit (2011)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Slumberland (2022)alters at E8 · same rung · looseAlso hides consciousness here
Other films that move a human interior onto the same kind of thing.
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)consciousness in abstractions · golf mythic journey
Jojo Rabbit (2019)consciousness in abstractions · imagined-hate friend
Shazam! (2019)consciousness in abstractions · sin-embodied realm
Inside Out 2 (2024)consciousness in abstractions · personified mindscape
The Book of Life (2014)consciousness in abstractions · mythic afterlife
Drop Dead Fred (1991)consciousness in abstractions · imaginary friend realmSame subject, different mask
The same preoccupations carried by a different kind of thing — grief told through the dead, an animal, a machine.
Beetlejuice (1988)consciousness in the dead · bureaucracy, identity
Megamind (2010)consciousness in aliens · identity, purpose
Elemental (2023)consciousness carried elsewhere · bureaucracy, identity
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)consciousness in objects · identity, purpose
The Cat Returns (2002)consciousness in animals · bureaucracy, identity
Coneheads (1993)consciousness in aliens · bureaucracy, identity
