"Life of Pi" Review

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Gangster Rap is Shakespeare for the Future
There is so much about Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” that I love, and so much that I hate. The story is told with an outer frame of an author talking to Pi about a shipwreck that he survives. Pi claims it will make him believe in God a lofty goal no doubt. The outer frame grounds the inner one, but also greatly reduces it. The inner is typically flowing and ambiguous with symbolism while the outer is like reading a textbook on the inner. The inner frame is beautifully shot while the outer was probably done in one day’s worth of shooting shot and reverse shot of dialogue to completely toss away the mood. The inner frame revolves around Pi as a boy who loves god. Not just one though, Pi is pantheistic by nature, and searches for god in everything, which the film ends up being about. A great line comes when Pi falls in love with Christianity, “Thank you Vishnu, for showing me to Christ” he says with a perfect, childlike earnestness. His father is an atheist and very staunch about it. He warns his son away from religion and for sentimentality. Humans have a way of projecting our own sentimentality onto animals, but for them, it’s not there. His father tells him that he will only see the reflection of himself in an animal’s eyes. But Pi’s attraction to religion is as hard wired as his father’s lack of, and though his faith is shaken when he is forced to see the heartlessness and decimating power of a tiger, named Richard Parker.

Eventually, his zoo-owning family is force to move to Canada, and bring the animals with them. The ship, of course, sinks and both shows off Lee’s visual spectacle, as well as his directorial weakness. Maybe it was because it was expected, or the unusually large amount of dialogue, but the scene never maintained or made me feel any gravity of the situation. The whole scene fell flat dramatically. I was never once concerned, wowed, or moved, but that’s okay, because just beyond that is the point where, for me, the movie begins. Pi finds himself stuck on a small boat in a sea of both terror and serene comfort.

An early and wonderful scene shows Pi’s uncle swimming in a public pool. As he swims in this pool that he’s described as the greatest place to swim in the world, the boundaries dissolve, and the water becomes indistinguishable from the sky. It’s both heaven and hell at the same time. Some gorgeous scenes show the water as the sky. It does not seem to reflect the sky, but be it. The water is something to be amazed by yet also frightened by. The scenes that focus on the water are just fantastically done all of the time. If there’s one thing to take away from the film, it’s these scenes, they are my vote for the best scenes of the year (if that’s a thing).

The use of 3D with the water effectively creates more planes within field of view. The water is presented as a barrier with luscious things beneath and above it. There are shots from under the water towards the boat which suggest its association with heaven. It glides on a different plane than the water. But at the same time, the water is also shown to be heaven as with the absolutely gorgeous scene that’s been highly advertised

There are many scenes in this similar style, and whenever they appeared, I felt a serenity and peace around my life even if it was just the opposite.

As I’m sure everyone who has seen the trailer knows, the boat ends up harboring a zebra, orangutan, hyena, and lastly, Richard Parker. There is conflict among them, and many deaths occur, leaving Richard Parker and Pi alone on the boat. Eventually both of them realize that the greater danger is the water, and learn to coexist, though through much training from Pi (There’s a horribly gimmicky 3D scene with a stick that annoyed me during this part.). While on the boat, many fantastical things happen. Flying fish charge at the boat, A whale leaps over it on a night where the sea lights up to the touch, and they end up on an island with simply thousands upon thousands of lemurs, and pools of acid. The important part though, is that none of these is entirely impossible in real life. There is one scene that’s very surrealistic, however, and I think it’s one of the best in it, where Pi sees directly down to the sunken ship from his boat. We see objects dissolve and turn into animals and firework like effects everywhere. It’s a spectacle and something that appears to be directly out of Ang Lee’s mind.

There are many things in the film that I thought had religious symbolism. There is a scene in which Pi uncovers all of the boat, which was previously half covered, and is immediately met with a devastating storm. The island where he finds himself is very interesting in terms of both a siren, and as heaven, yet Pi chooses to leave and live his life instead. There is much to discuss about the events of “Life of Pi,” unfortunately, I have a feeling that not many people will do so. This is because the ending dumbs down the film and, for me, tries to change its entire meaning.

After reaching land, Pi tells the story of how investigators asked him for his survival story. Pi tells him the same story he told us, but then when they don’t believe him, tells a more “realistic” story that equates the animals to people on the ship and his mother. The point of this seems to shock us into believing his story, as humans must not be as savage as animals, and by accepting the other story, we now believe in God. The second story was weak and referenced very minor characters with little effect. This also makes audiences think that they “got” the film. They are done with it, it was cool, but they can throw it into the back of their minds. This angers me so much because I know the film has much more to offer than that, and its much more about the visual aspects than what comes out of Pi’s mouth.

In the end, the film is very obviously an adaptation of a book. It sets itself up like one, and relies on words to decipher its plot. Pi leaves the lemur island when he finds a human tooth. Instead of us witnessing him finding the tooth and then leaving, we get him finding the tooth, telling us the significance of the tooth, and why it made him leave, and then his departure. The middle part there was completely unnecessary, and really ruined the scene for me. Though the film is focused on giving the audience closure, I implore you to simply not listen to the ending. Look at how the scene is shot, when Pi recounts the story to the investigators, there’s a number of beautiful and important things in that one frame, and it’s thematically consistent, unlike some of the things with the water. But once that scene is over, leave. That is where the film ends, the rest is trivial, and greatly lessens its quality. From then on, and in most of the outer frame scenes, the film becomes a formulaic Hollywood film, and a bad one at that. If all of those scenes were removed from the film, this is the best film of the year, but they’re there, and they’re worthless. Lee creates themes and imagery in a way that no modern director does except for Terrence Malick. At times the film feels Malickian, but then Lee does the one thing that Malick doesn’t that makes Malick so fascinating and great, he explains himself, and often, not even in the right way. Lee almost had it, and the film is still good, and one of the best shot films of the year, but he falters too much for the film to be great. I’d recommend seeing it though if you can block out the outer frame scenes the way I’m trying to.

Rating: 4/5
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Mubi



I would love to hear you're input on my thoughts of the film. I feel as though the entire first part of the film, including how he got the nickname Pi, his search into spirituality, and his brief (forgettable) relationship with Anaandi, was completely unnecessary. The film seemed to spread itself too thin between being a slice of life drama and a suspensful thriller. I felt that the movie should be called "Pi and the Tiger" and start with their journey on the boat. This would allow them to go further into developing the characters that just seemed like throwaway personalities, like the french cook, the buddhist who told them about gravy, and Pi's family for that matter. Any information we learned about Pi in the first part would be explained in brief asides between different characters on the boat. I understand that making this a thriller was probably not Ang Lee's motive but I feel like the movie ends up being uneven and dilutes any real message it's trying to convey.



Gangster Rap is Shakespeare for the Future
I think that most of the film's beginning was trivial. From the opening, "Look at me, I'm in pretty 3D" montage, I was not excited. It was important to establish Pi's connection with God, and religion, and possibly with water, his gateway, or window into heaven (I loved the scene where the pool dissolves into the sky). The throwaway personalities were a big fault of the film, especially since it tried to flip the story on its head with them, it didn't hold any water (no pun intended). Personally, I would've fathered the journey on the boat uninterrupted as it wa the most pure and magical section, but with that, the film seems very uneven, your way sounds like a better option than the original, but I'm not sure what the best way to handle it would be.