Ang Lee’s movie is based on Yann Martel’s Booker prize winning novel ‘Life of Pi’. The protagonist Piscine Molitar Patel lives in small French town in southern India called Pondicherry with his traditional mother, brother and his father who owns the zoo. The film gives due justice to setting the stage - depicting rural India in the 20th century, the hilarious administrative mistake leading to the tiger getting the name ‘Richard Parker’ and how Piscine comes to be known as ‘Pi’, how he learns the hard way about the ferocity of wild animals and many such incidences are filmed with great detail and creativity. To the astonishment of everyone, Pi who is being raised in a Hindu family starts developing faith in all religions at a very young age. His innocent belief is truly evident when he prays–“Thank you Vishnu for introducing me to Christ”.“Faith is a house with many rooms” becomes the central philosophy of Pi. This also provides a spiritual angle that serves as a preface to the rest of the story.
Such a strong buildup but the story that follows struggles to keep up with it. It all starts when Pi’s father decides to sell the zoo and move to Canada with family and a few zoo animals to meet the family’s financial needs.
Sky falls on young Pi when he loses the entire family in a ship wreck and is left all alone in the vast ocean clinging to hope of survival on a small life boat. Well, shortly he discovers that he is not all alone after all but in a terrible companies of ‘Richard Parker’ the fierce Bengal tiger, a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan. It is not long before the orangutan and the zebra are torn open and relished by the carnivores and Richard Parker emerges as the supreme survivor. All this while Pi is hidden in a corner reading the survival manual. His faith and will power help him tame the tiger. Not just that they also become friends eventually and help each other’s survival. The journey continues for 227 days with a few cliched life threatening and heroic sequences typical of all 'cast away' themed movies. This pretty much forms 2/3rd of the film. At the same time it is also the most beautiful part of the film – visually that is. CGI created Richard Parker has as much poise and ferocity of a real tiger. The serene sunrise and sunsets by the ocean, the colorful marine life, are all captured flawlessly and with an artisticsense by the camera. The mysterious island that Pi stops by is also pictured with a creative touch.
When Pi finally makes to the land without Richard Parker (I’ll leave that part of the story for you to find out) the citizens rescue him and he is taken to the officials who have the responsibility to report the ship wreck. It seems unbelievable for a human to survive this long in the company of a wild animal. So Pi narrates the other version wherein he substitutes the animals for human characters on the ship. That story reeks of the basic survival instinct shown by humans at times of despair. No wonder, the officials decide to seal the story that has Richard Parker in it.
There are many questions that remain unanswered. Is it a fable or a parable? Is taming the tiger a metaphor to taming one’s fears? Was the author drawing parallel to Noah’s Ark? Is this the proof of the powers of resolute faith? Well, these definitely come to the mind of the readers of the novel but fail to surface clearly in the movie. For those who haven’t read the book, the movie can at best be viewed as a fantastical story. Its beauty is dreamlike; almost surreal.
The entire story takes place in flashback as the adult Pi played by Irrfan Khan narrates his adventure to the author while he visits Pi’s home in Canada. This too is acts as a disadvantage as it takes away the opportunity of keeping the audience in suspense about the survival of Pi. The actors succeed in making the characters appear real.l Kudos to Suraj Sharma who debuts with this movie as young Pi Patel. But if you ask me the real hero of the movie is Claudio Miranda – the celebrated cinematographer. Life of Pi with its 3D format and CGI effects is another feather in his cap.
The movie can be described as a marvelous poetic rendition of Yann Martel’s novel. If there was an award for the best aesthetic movie then I am sure Pi would have won. But best movie? Hmm I’ll save my doubt until the actual Oscar night. Ang Lee has dished out a pie that is visually very appealing but fails to stir the soul! My rating - 3/5.
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