Life of Pi

SPOILERS...

 

I recall seeing a copy of Yann Martel's Life of Pi in seemingly every reader's hands at Starbucks and on airplanes a decade ago. Like with many bestsellers, I was fascinated by the premise but just never got around to reading it. While many friends and reviewers embraced this adventure story, others (i.e., people at church, conservative theologians) were dismissing it as a tract for religious pluralism. Now that Ang Lee (who won an Oscar for his work here) has directed the long delayed film adaptation, the responses seem like "deja vu all over again." This film is evidently a faithful adaptation. But such criticism is alarmingly singular, a missing of so many other worthwhile attributes.

As LIFE OF PI began, I was instantly taken with the film's amazing use of color. The title sequence promises a gorgeous palatte to follow (and delivers), especially in 3-D.  But then it became clear that the movie would employ one of the most problematic of film tools: the framing device. A present day scene where someone, often clutching a cup of tea and/or in a hospital bed,  reminisces of their youth, of what they lost. Here, a middle-aged man originally from India named Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) who relays a fantastic tale: after his cargo ship sinks en route to Canada, Pi spends over 7 months adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. His brother and parents and everyone else on board had perished.

Pi, which is short for Piscene (named after a swimming pool in France that his father loved), wistfully relays his story to a young writer, looking for his next novel, in the present day. As he takes it in, the writer's face sometimes suggests doubt. It's quite a story. A young boy from Pondicherry, taken to flights of fancy, grows up with more rational minded siblings and parents. His father owns a zoo, and Pi learns a hard, awful lesson there one day. Dad proves to him that the tiger that Pi thinks is his friend ("I can see it in his eyes") is indeed a cold blooded, instinctual killer who will act on his most basic urges. Afterward, Pi's father explains, "what you see in his eyes is your own emotion reflected back at you."

 

Pi is also chastised by his family for his liberal embrace of several religions. The boy sees no issue with following Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam simultaneously. Dad's religion is Rationalism. He does not "embrace the mystery."

Hard times force the family to sell the zoo and sail to a new life in North America. They bring a few animals on the boat to sell in Canada. Four of them end up in the lifeboat with Pi: a zebra, a baboon, a hyena, and "Richard Parker", said tiger. Natural selection pares the menagerie down to the tiger and human in a few difficult but mercifully watchable scenes (the novel is reportedly much more graphic). LIFE OF PI then settles into a survival at sea story as Pi learns to tame the fierce Bengal (never contrived to behave like your typical cartoon tiger, but a real, vicious animal) amidst dwindling rations, unpredictable weather conditions, and the emergences of sperm whales and sharks. There will also be a stop on a mysterious island populated by thousands of meerkats that harbors a dark secret, revealed each night.

Later in Pi's story, after his eventual rescue on a shore in Mexico, he explains to the writer that a pair of Chinese insurance adjusters (there to find out why the ship sank) are puzzled by this tale of an island, one whose existence they cannot verify. They in fact don't believe a word of the entire story. At this point, LIFE OF PI reveals its layers, its resounding theme. It's a big twist, a moment that will cause viewers to rethink all they just saw. The moment that sparks the controversy. It's all in a single line of dialogue:

"Which do you prefer?"

I will not reveal the full implications of that statement. Readers of the novel already know. As I thought on it, I began to muse in directions that Lee and Martel might've considered. Namely, are the stories in the Christian Bible actual depictions or mere allegories? I ask this specific question as I was raised in Christian environments. I remember a troublemaker named Todd who during Sunday School always embarrassed the class and aggravated instructors with his constant questions: "What if someone wrote the Bible as a joke?" He never wondered aloud likewise of the Koran.  The creators of Pi's story appeal to wider scope of questioning, inquiries to mortals as to whether they believe what terrestrial minds can fathom or something more abstract, "unbelievable." The campus and coffee shop debates will be endless.

But LIFE OF PI works best, for me, as an example, fundamentally, of a story told with great skill and artistry.  Of fine filmmaking. The philosophy of this scenario ultimately seems a bit simplistic and can accurately be summed up by and reduced to those "Co-Exist" bumper stickers we've all seen. But Lee again oversees with a keen eye for detail and a real handle on narrative sweep. What an impressive body of films! He has explored many environments and time periods over his career, each mostly with great confidence and insight. Additionally, the visuals in his latest movie are absolutely stunning at times, particularly as sea life and even the ocean itself cast imposing shapes and auras. I won't soon forget the image of the lights of the sinking ship, or how realistic the tiger seemed, almost entirely computer generated. The 3-D seems entirely organic to the picture, never a gimmick.

By the end of the movie, I realized to my delight that the story's framing device is, for once, absolutely necessary. Its very use is in many ways the film's point, its essence. Impressive. But I was most impressed with how beautifully crafted and told this story was. The wonder and magic of it.  Call me shallow but the most effective take aways for me were recalling the moments when Pi and the tiger take care of each other,  and, um, co-exist. There is a very astute study of human and animal relations in this movie.  Their relationship is nicely developed, and the more you think on it the more poignant it becomes. Two beings, so dissimiliar yet both surviving under such harsh conditions by sheer instinct. And what a fascinating moment, when hunger levels the playing field.

And their final scene together (not sentimental in the least) was as emotional for me as it was for Pi.