Life of Pi

[Abaco 0]

I didn't watch the Oscars but heard that Life of Pi got some recognition. I'm curious if anybody else here saw it and what you thought. I saw it in the theater about a month ago and really enjoyed it. It is visually stunning on the big screen. The young man who plays the part of Pi while adrift did a great job. The CGI work was surprisingly realistic. I'd like to see a "making of" for this movie.

[FloridaBeachcomber 0]

I read the book 3 or 4 years ago.

It was sooooooo unique and memorable I refused to see the film version, . . . though continuously
provoked by a lady friend to go.

I am currently in process of changing my mind.

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

I read the book 3 or 4 years ago.

It was sooooooo unique and memorable I refused to see the film version, . . . though continuously

provoked by a lady friend to go.

I am currently in process of changing my mind.

About the book or about the movie?

[Nate Smith 0]

I just saw it this week (spoilers coming). There is a lot that I liked about the movie. Visually, it was beautiful. The development of Pi and his relationship with Richard Parker was a unique and fascinating plot element. And the struggle for meaning and survival made for an interesting story. (The floating carnivorous island was a little strange though.)

But I was disappointed with the twist at the end. After Pi tells his whole story, along with the second more "plausible" account he tells the Japanese men, he asks his listener, "which is the better story?" Of course the version with the animals is the favored choice. Pi responds, "And so it goes with God." In other words, it's proper to believe in god, because that's a more preferable view of reality.

Here's one Q & A I found online:

Sarah (a fan): What a thought-provoking story! My question is which story was in your mind the actual one? Was it his faith in God which allowed him to experience the "animal" version and to protect him from the gruesome reality? Was that the wonder of the story that you intended? I have difficulty even asking because I firmly believe that a story is determined somewhere in the intersection of reader and text. I am curious though, what your intended interpretation was. — Sarah

Author (Yann Martel): Dear Sarah, I leave it to the reader to choose which is the better story. It can go both ways. Pi survived with Richard Parker and then, confronted with the skepticism of the Japanese, and wanting his suffering to be validated, to be accepted, he creates another story, the story without animals. That's one reading. Or Pi and his mother and the French cook and a Taiwanese sailor survive, it turns into a butchery and Pi invents the story with animals presumably to pass the time and to make acceptable the unacceptable, that is, the murder of his mother by the Frenchman and Pi's killing of the Frenchman. Both stories are offered, one is on the outer edges of the barely believable, the other is nearly unbearable in its violence, neither explains the sinking of the ship, in both Pi suffers and loses his family, in both he is the only human survivor to reach the coast of Mexico. The investigators must choose and the reader must choose. When the investigators choose the story with animals, Pi answers "And so it goes with God." In other words, Pi makes a parallel between the two stories and religion. His argument (and mine) is that a vision of life that has a transcendental element is better than one that is purely secular and materialist. A story with God ("God" defined in the broadest sense) is the better story, I argue, just as I think the story with animals is the better story. But you choose.

In short, the movie advocates a primacy of consciousness metaphysics with the sole argument for it being skepticism. Despite its redeeming qualities, this certainly soured me on the movie.