Pete Docter’s “Soul” features stairway-to-heaven
visions of the afterlife, a pre-birth “before” realm
where souls are glowing turquoise orbs and an
in-between spiritual realm trafficked by some
kind of psychedelic pirate. And yet, kind of
magically, it’s about “just regular old living.”
Pixar may have started simple with talking toys,
but their concepts have grown increasingly
elaborate over the years, giving abstract
shape to interior consciousness (“Inside Out”),
brightening a peopled world of the dead
(“Coco”) and conjuring a mythical suburban