Cinematic beauty. Life of Pi is a well crafted story executed with brilliant direction by Ang Lee. I saw the 2-D version and can only imagine how much more stunning this would be in 3-D.
In my quest for seeing Oscar nominated movies, I took Son to see the movie. I gave him the option of this or Lincoln; Daughter chose Lincoln which hopefully she will have space in her life to actually go see.
Life of Pi tells the tale of a young Indian man, Pi, whose family embarks on a trans-Pacific freighter to Canada in hopes of selling their zoo animals and starting a new life. The ship capsizes (Son just finished Moby Duck which had a similar event) leaving Pi to share the lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger. The story is told in flashbacks by an adult Pi (played by Irrfan Khan, whom I loved in HBO’s In Treatment) with fantastic tales about how Pi came to tame the tiger, how they found a carnivorous floating island, how a giant phosphorescent whale rose up in a great splash around them.
When Pi finally reaches land and is in the hospital recovering, the freighter insurance men tried to understand why the freighter sank and to make sense of Pi’s story. They kept harassing Pi for the “truth” about what happened. Pi then tells them a brutal “story” leaving us to wonder if this awful story is in fact the truth.
When the writer who is interviewing the adult Pi as to which of the stories was true:
Adult Pi : So which story do you prefer?
Writer: The one with the tiger. That’s the better story.
Adult Pi: Thank you. And so it goes with God.
God and religion was a big theme in the movie but I thought this exchange sums up religion in general: people can swallow religion because it’s a better story.
Life of Pi has been on my to read list for a long time. I’m bumping it up on the list. This is a movie worth watching.