Movie: Life of Pi

Life of Pi: an amazing film especially if you see it in 3-D.  This is a film you need to go to the movie theatre and not wait for the DVD.  When I saw the movie trailer with the boy and the tiger on a boat in the middle of an ocean, I thought this film will either be very good or very bad.   I also thought that different people will react quite differently to this film.   I left the theatre amazed that the director Ang Lee and the film scriptwriter David Magee had pulled it off and produced something so delightful, thoughtful and enjoyable.   But I bet there will be some strong dissenters as to this adoption of the novel by Yann Martel.   A substantial portion of the 126 minute film takes place with a teenager and a tiger trying to survive on a boat in the Pacific Ocean.   Need I say more as to why some of you may have a different reaction?    Further, there is no suspense as to whether the boy will survive because the opening scenes are a conversation between a writer recently returned from India who was told to visit Pi, who is now a middle aged man.   Scriptwriter Magee used the conventional devise of having someone say I am going to tell you a story to convert a novel most people would never have believed could be made into a movie.    Despite the lack of suspense as to the outcome and a very conventional opening followed by a childhood remembrance by Pi growing up in India, when the shipwreck occurs and Pi is left to his own devices to survive in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it  is what follows that this commentary opens with the word amazing.   Irrfan Khan plays Pi as an adult and the movie opens and closes with him.   Pi as an 11/12 year old is played by Ayush Tandon.   But who is amazing is Pi on the ocean played by Suraj Sharma.   Survival stories are festinating when the focus is on how a person goes about the tasks of surviving: finding food and water while keeping your sanity.   From the childhood scenes we know that Pi has a religious soul.   But the movie doesn’t have God providing.   Instead we see Pi take the practical steps necessary to find food and obtain water.   As for the tiger, who we first meet in India and Pi’s family had named Robert Parker, the animation is remarkable.   The tiger always appears to be real and you never think otherwise.    I will be surprised if Magee does not win an Oscar for script adopted from another media.   Lee clearly deserves an Oscar nomination for this work.   Director Oscar winner this year is tough competition with Spielberg for Lincoln and Afflict for Argo.  This film along with Lincoln and Argo will receive nominations for best film of the year.   All three films are excellent with Life of Pi being truly unique.   For those of you not familiar with the book, the boy named himself Pi after being teased for his real name, Piscine.