Life of Pi (2012)

Life of Pi (2012)

Where Chuck Nolan had Wilson, Pi has Richard Parker...

 'Life of Pi' tells the story of a man named after a french swimming pool, but because of bullies he shortens his name to just Pi. He grows up within a family that runs a zoo, until they have to move to Canada and sell off the animals.

On their way to Canada, taking with them some animals to sell, the ship they are travelling on gets into a storm and sinks, leaving Pi stranded in the ocean with some animals, most notably a tiger called Richard Parker for company.

The movie is in one word... Beautiful.

To those that have not read the book, I am one of them, that's what it is... a story.

The older Pi, now living in Canada is retelling this story to a writer who is out of ideas for his new book, having just thrown away the last two years of work he had been writing.

By the end Pi tells the young writer that once he was back on land, safe and recovering in hospital that two men working for an insurance company visited him. They want to know how it all went down, literally, why the ship sank. And how Pi survived.

Pi goes on to tell them the story we have been witness to the entire movie thus far... a story of a boy sharing a boat with a Tiger. How the tiger kept him alive, if not through fear, being alert, giving him something to care for.

They do not buy it. It's a ridiculous story.

Pi mulls this over and tells them the same story, but instead of sharing the life boat with the tiger, and the hyena and orang-outang... he shares it with other people.

The story plays out the same as it did with the animals but with humans.

Where it was cute and funny, yet still touching when it was animals not its disturbing and upsetting when its humans, when its his mother, and when it is him. He is the tiger.

I love the stark contrast of how he tells the human story, how it is filmed. When we are with him and the tiger through the movie the visuals are spectacular. The 3-D draws you in, amazing, the colours and textures.

There is one point in the movie when Pi is looking overboard into the depths of the sea below, and the camera follows his gaze... and what of what we see. Please go see it in theatres in 3-D if not for just what we see in the depths of the ocean.

When we are with him in the hospital all we see is white. We are close up on his face as he tells the alternative story.

Yeah, I filled up.

The older Pi shows the young writer the insurance document report, and the story the two insurance men wrote down was the story we saw, Pi and the tiger.

Take from that what you will. I choose to believe that comments on how all religion is made up and it's your faith, your belief that makes it real. To you.

But you choose as a viewer which story to believe.


My sister thought the animal story that we had watched was the real one and the human one he had made up, I thought the opposite. It's up to you.



Rating - 5




Hasta Luego
-Fake Shemp-