Movie Spoiler LIFE OF PI (2012)

Master of genre-hopping Ang Lee helmed the $120M adaptation of Yann Martel's Life of Pi, a risky venture considering it's a fantasy-drama based on a novel set in the middle of the ocean starring a boy and a CGI tiger.  Deadline reports that the film is over-performing modest studio expectations in the initial forecast for Thanksgiving weekend.  It could quite possibly catch on and develop legs through the holiday season, which is a rarity these days for wide releases (Argo being a recent example).  Considering it's an original movie with adult sensibilities, I would love to see that happen.  I wasn't really sure what to expect going in, not having read the novel and only seen the trailer, but, like Castaway, its plot squeezes a great deal out of barebones details pitting man against nature.  Pi is framed with a narrative device looking back on events through the eyes of the titular character being interviewed by an annoying novelist (annoying only because he resembles an irksome blogger I know).  After sharing scenes from his youth, he dives into the story proper and tells his extraordinary tale.  The computer graphics are awe inspiring, especially the footage of Pi swimming.  And a oceaniac bioluminescent scene involving a whale and several sea creatures is simply fantastic, especially when viewed through 3D glasses, and while its ship sinking scene isn't as involved as Titanic's, it's certainly spectacular.  I'm not a strong advocate of 3D technology, but there are instances such as Pi and Hugo where they actually enhance the cinematic experience.  My only gripes are a polish to the movie in general that I found only slightly off-putting and the borderline cloying framing device.  For the most part, I embraced the movie, even if it ran a tad long.  Lee's effort was overall solid and he has a magical touch not unlike his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, another otherworldly affair which took audiences where they had never been before.  The film's pantheistic nature may turn off religious hardliners, as well as atheists,  but will likely appeal to the majority who have a belief in a general God with a mild attachment to any one particular worship.  The film makes a strong argument for the purpose of religion as a coping mechanism to endure insurmountable odds that would crush the average person.  Go see this!  And see it in 3D while you can.

Oscar Odds
As far as its Oscar odds, there are some things that just strike me as certain, even if it does end up falling short at the box-office like Hugo: Best Picture, Director (Lee), Adapted Screenplay (David Magee), Cinematography (Claudio Miranda), Visual Effects, having a chance at winning the latter two, maybe even screenplay.  Art Direction and Editing also strike me as being in play for nominations.  I never know about the sound categories, but instinct tells me to throw them in also.  The score didn't strike me as especially memorable, simply because I can't recall it, but what do I know.

Movie Spoiler Summary

Life of Pie opens the credits over footage in an Indian zoo. Flash-forward to the older Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) in Canada being interviewed in his home by a writer (Rafe Spall).  He prepares them a meal as he takes him through various points in his youth via flashback, which include his uncle Mamaji teaching him (Gautam Belur) to swim.  Through montage, he explains how public ridicule in his youth forced him (Ayush Tandon) to shorten his name from Piscine Molitor (his uncle’s favorite Parisian swimming complex) to Pi culminating in a scene during his math class where he writes out the infinite number corresponding to his nickname taking up several chalkboards to his schoolmate's delight. 

Back to the present, the writer explains how he was brought to Pi through Mamaji.  Pi tells more tales from his youth including the Pondicherry, his father opening the zoo, how his parents got together and had him and his brother.  As a boy, Pi harbored an interest in Gods, which expanded as he grew older and included Hindi graphic novels, conversations with a priest (Andrea Di Stefano), and adopting Islam.  His father chose to be an atheist, while his mother believed in God.  During a dinner conversation, the parents have a disagreement where the father (Adil Hussain) advocates for science and fact, but the mother (Tabu) suggests that those elements can’t tend one’s heart. 

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In another flashback, Pi visits the Bengal tiger Richard Parker at the zoo with a fist full of raw meat.  His frightened father finds him and teaches the boy a lesson by forcing him to watching the tiger devour a goat.  As a teenager, Pi (Suraj Sharma) falls in love with Amandee (Shravanthi Sainath).  Unfortunately, his father decides they must leave India for Canada.  The family boards Japanese freighter Tsimtsum (which may be a Hebrew term) with all of the animals and their possessions and set sail across the Pacific Ocean.  There’s a short scene in the mess hall with a French server (Gérard Depardieu) who chides the family for being vegetarian, leading to a fight that breaks out.  A young Buddhist later provides the hungry family encouragement.  (This scene establishes a spoiler that will become important later in the film.)

In the ship’s hull, Pi’s father tends to the animals as best as he knows how.  A storm breaks out and sends a curious Pi to the deck.  The violent waves force the ship to take on a massive amount of water.  Pi swims through the hallways to locate his family, but their room is entirely filled up.  The crew begins to employ a safety boat, but a falling zebra sends the craft with Pi and the animal into the water.  Pi manages to save Richard Parker, sending himself into the water where there is an amazing shot from underneath of Pi swimming and looking up towards the capsized ship on the surface.  He makes it back onto the safety boat and hugs a pole protruding from the bow with dear life. 

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The next day, on calmer seas, he draws water out of the boat with a pale.  A hidden hyena reveals itself, and an orangutan floats by on a net full of bananas.  The hyena stirs up some shit, throws up, and methodically attacks and kills the poor zebra.  Pi falls asleep and drops into the water waking himself up.  He opens supplies, gives the orangutan a vest.  Using the extra vests and oars, he fashions a makeshift raft.  The hyena acts up again.  The orangutan gets one sharp audience-pleasing slap in, before the relentless hyena attacks and kills her.  Pi draws out a small axe on the hyena and out pops Richard Parker and devours the little monster.  He starts to advance on Pi, but backs off when he can’t negotiate the canvass covering the bow. 

Pi climbs onto the raft.  Later, he locates food in the boat.  Pi finds a rat and throws it at Richard Parker to avoid getting attacked.  He gets back on the raft and cries that night.  The next day he sends a mayday message in a can out to sea. He peers into the boat only to be welcomed by tiger grumbling.  Pi prays, observes map, and reads a survival manual.  He employs a Pavlov method by blowing a whistle while rocking the boat and inciting sea sickness in Richard Parker.  He gets back on the boat and tries to assert his dominance by urinating in front of the tiger, only for the tiger to return his own projection.  (One of the giveaways of the movie is that the manual Pi reads provides unbelievable guidance suggestions that one wouldn’t likely find in such reading materials.)  He blows the whistle and puts out a pail of water for the tiger to drink. 

Pi starts fishing and Richard Parker jumps into the water and begins swimming towards him.  Pi manages to turn the tables and gains possession of the boat, and pulls the raft aboard.  He uses the small axe to threaten Richard Parker, hanging onto ropes on the side of the boat.  Later, he drops the ladder and blows the whistle to allow the tiger back on board.  The next day, Pi takes inventory of the food while it’s laid out precariously on the raft.  He catches a huge fish and prays after killing it, throwing it to the hungry Richard Parker. 

That night, there is bioluminescent scene (the best one!) showing off the sea life.  A whale emerges and jumps out of the water predictably knocking the food rations off the raft and into the sea.  “Hunger can change every idea you’ve had about yourself.”  The next day, thousands of fish begin flying through the air across the boat, many of them landing inside as food prospects.  Richard Parker tries to attack Pi, but eventually turns his attention to the fish.  The next day, Pi boards the boat and tames the tiger with a rod, while rewarding him with fish, sending him acquiescing underneath the bow’s canopy. 

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Time passes, and Pi has fashioned himself a luxury raft (considering the circumstances), which provides him a little shade.  “Without Richard Parker, I would have died by now.”  They’re visited by dolphins.  Pi spots a ship in the horizon and fires flares into the night without success.  There is a montage of Pi and Richard Parker idling the days away.  There’s a fantasy sequence involving the sea life, as well as the zoo animals.  Both Pi and Richard Parker think back on their lives.  Pi journals some more.  A storm sends him falling into the water.  He prays and then watches the lightning during the rough storm, sending Richard Parker cowering.  He covers the vessel, while the tiger and him swish around in water the boat has taken on.  During calmer seas, Pi comforts a frail Richard Parker and touches him for the first time. 

The next day, he wakes to find a floating island.  He pulls himself ashore and begins eating the moss on the ground, as well as a vegetable he digs up.  He explores and realizes that the island is composed almost entirely of meerkats.   Pi swims in a lagoon and Richard Parker casually consumes a docile meerkat, while the others pay no attention.  Pi sets up camp in a tree and wakes that night to find dead bioluminescent fish swimming in the lagoon.  Richard Parker chills in the boat as a long shot reveals the island is in the shape of a human corpse.  Pi picks a juicy piece of fruit which contains a human tooth. He shares with the writer that the island was carnivorous and he couldn’t stay.  He prepares the boat and alerts Richard Parker with the whistle. 

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They continue on and reach Mexico.  Richard Parker jumps ashore and disappears into the jungle.  Men rescue Pi.  And he expresses regret to the writer that he was never able to properly say goodbye to the tiger.  In flashback, the insurance report demands of Pi why the ship sunk (which is strange, because he was just a young passenger with a wild imagination).  He then tells a different story, where instead of the zebra, hyena, and orangutan, there is the young Asian Buddhist, the French mess hall attendant, and Pi’s mother.  The events are pretty much the same, only with different characters.  It’s clear, at this point, that Pi made up a story to tell others in order to process and move beyond his traumatizing event.  “So it goes with God.”  The writer reads that the insurance report included mention of the Bengal Tiger (which was actually Pi).  Pi introduces him to his family.  The final shot is of Richard Parker walking into the jungle.  Roll 3D credits. 

For I don’t know what reason, here is the final appearance from Sigfried and Roy from three years ago with the tiger that accidentally mauled Roy Horn.  


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