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     Filmbuff Comedian Username: Filmbuff Post Number: 1110 Registered: 11-2011 Posted From: 101.63.208.16 Rating: |
Life Of Pi I read the book soon after it got the Booker prize over 10 years back. It was a very enjoyable, interesting and above all a gripping book considering that for the most part, it is just a boy and a tiger on a boat. I never considered that it would be filmed. So when I heard that Ang Lee was making the movie, I put it down on my watch list. The movie starts with Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) telling a writer friend about his fascinating story. Pi’s family is a Hindu family based in Pondicherry, his father a •••-owner. Pi grows up with an unnatural interest in religion for a young lad and experiments with both Christianity and Islam. He is just getting into adolescence and falling in love (“just enough time to break their hearts”) when Pi’ father decides to move the family to Canada, during the period of the Emergency (some radio announcements hint at this). They decide to take their animals along with them. Along the journey, the ship capsizes in a storm and all that are left on a stowaway boat are Pi, an orang utan, a tiger named Richard Parker, zebra and a hyena. The zebra was injured in the story and dies soon after while the hyena kills the orang utan. Soon after the hyena too dies and all that are left are Pi and the tiger. Pi learns to survive the tiger and later on train the tiger and establish territorial control in the boat and an accompanying raft. He uses tricks learnt from a survival book on the boat – making fresh water, catching fish, feeding the tiger to establish ownership etc. However they reach a time, after another storm, when Pi and the tiger are gradually losing their will to live till they reach an exotic island full of meerkats, banyan trees, carnivorous trees and acidic waters. After realizing the dangers of living there for long, Pi decides to leave the place after stocking up on food and fresh water. They somehow manage to reach Mexico safely and the tiger walks away into the jungle. The ship owners do not believe Pi’s story, hence he spins another yarn for them which is a bit more believable for them. The movie ends with a whiff of mystery around what was the real story. I do not remember too much of the details in the book and hence I am not clouded by my memory. I do remember the book as a classic three act - the first act in India, the second act on the sea and the third being the island/ new story act. Ang Lee largely sticks to the format and the structure here. The first act in Pondicherry has been shot well though there is a hint of exotic-ising. Acting by everyone is very good. Tabu has a minor role to play as Pi’s mother with not a lot of speaking lines. The drama on the boat came across as a tad mundane – the book was more gripping and graphic, Ang has chosen to leave a lot of this out. Without that, the adventure on high seas becomes a bit meandering at times with not a lot of dramatic conflict. There is no particular scene that had me grip my seat harder, for a movie with just a tiger and a boy on a boat, that is not excusable. The tricky part about the book is the section on the island which delves into magical realism, spiritualism and religious awakenings. The book is heavy on religious allegory and the idea of the carnivorous ecosystem on the island was always difficult for me to interpret, either in the movie or in the book. Was it like the Garden of Eden and the Forbidden Fruit, was it just an indicator that we should not stop at intermediate goals and use them just as a stop to refill, or did the man-eating trees mirror Pi’s own descent into cannibalism and push him to get out. Whatever might be the case, I would have loved a longer segment here. Without this contextual framework, the movie comes across a lightweight adventure fantasy with a dash of religious icing on the top. The acting is top class all around, considering most of the cast are newcomers. The technical effects are nothing to complain about. One issue I had with the movie was the 3D. I am not a fan of 3D, because of the dark glasses the colours in the movie get a washed out look. I found that very troubling, I frequently took out my glasses and found the colours so much richer and deeper. More importantly I am not sure what 3D has added to the movie. The bigger issue I had was with the interpretation. Ang Lee’s unfussy style of filmmaking works where there can be a straight visualization of the text like in Brokeback Mountain or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Mind you, that is not a lesser talent. Most people can’t even get that right. However where there is a lot of subtext and interpretation involved, and going beyond the material especially in a symbolism heavy book like Life of Pi, he is a bit challenged. The book could have used someone strong in religious and metaphorical imagery like Terence Malick or some over the top wacko like Danny Boyle. That is why an Ang Lee or a Clint Eastwood are great story tellers, but not auteurs. |
