The listing for Cold Souls fascinated me when I first flipped through Sundance Film Guide. It described a science fiction film in which souls can be extracted from the body and purchased and sold on a black market. Knowing only this, I had to assume the film would take a metaphysical approach and examine the duality between the body and the soul.

The film starts of with a quote from Descartes in which he describes that the pineal gland in the brain is the physical location of the soul. I assumed this quote would be used to ease us into this exploration of dualism; unfortunately it seemed only to function as a plot device by letting people know the idea behind the soul residing in a physical part of the brain was not new. It also let us know where we need to stretch our creative imagination in order to enjoy this science fiction comedy. (more…)