A vivid, thought-provoking and riveting film not for the faint of heart:
Life of Pi premiered in 2012 and yet, over a decade later, it can easily hold a claim to being one of the most gripping and immersive adventure films to be ever created in the 21st century.
Brought to life with stunning use of CGI, Life of Pi focuses on a terrifying story of survival: Indian teenager Pi Patel (played by Suraj Sharma) is marooned on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a tiger after he loses the rest of his family in a shipwreck.
Directed by Ang Lee and based on the book of the same name by Yann Martel, the film addresses complex themes like resilience, the relationship between animals and humans, spirituality and the conflict between truth and narrative.
It begins with the concept of a story within a story: an adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) retells the story to a Canadian author, (Rafe Spall) who is eager to write a book out of it.
Pi starts with his childhood, where the viewer can’t help but connect with the younger Pi, who uses intelligence to deal with relatable problems, for instance, the bullying around his full name (Piscine) that he managed to overcome by asserting his new name to be Pi, using mathematics to, in a way ‘prove’ it.
Indeed, he is not without his quirks, such as his practicing of three religions simultaneously – Christianity, Islam & Hinduism – much to the scorn of his logic-minded father and brother.
As these memories are recollected by the older Pi, the filmmakers introduce profound truths that will be echoed throughout the film: the theme of confidence in our identity and beliefs, regardless of the opinions of others.
But the most key moment of his childhood is the first meeting between him and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger residing in the zoo Pi’s father owns.
Feeling empathy for the tiger, Pi lets him out of his cage and tries to feed him personally.
This angers his father, who forces Pi to watch Richard Parker kill a goat to prove that animals lack humanity, though Pi’s mother shields him (and us) from the worst of the gore.
Pi remains certain that animals have a soul full of emotions, but considering the realism through which Richard Parker is depicted shows the audio mixers/engineers (much like the visual department) didn’t shy away from presenting a truly menacing creature.
And yet amidst the tiger’s constant fury, there is a sentience, and Life of Pi endeavours, with numerous jump scares along the way, to explore Pi and Richard Parker’s evolving relationship, and show there is probably more to the tiger than pure wildness.
Before his family leave India to go to Canada (because of ‘The Emergency’ in India), Pi meets the dancer Anandi, who becomes his girlfriend, but what impresses the viewer about their relationship its tragic nature: Pi’s promise to return to her again, and yet, it never happens.
Through this, Life of Pi offers a timeless viewpoint on loss: the most painful aspect of it is never getting the chance to say a proper farewell.
CGI can often seem misplaced in film, but Life of Pi reaches a new level of authenticity that at the end, when the viewer is made to question the truth of the story, they still want to believe it: Pi Patel did get stranded in the middle of the ocean with a tiger, and after all the turbulence and hardship, both Pi and viewers are granted a happy ending.
