An all time great film

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2013)

2012 is a great film year. Almost all the films I looked forward to delivered. However one stood above them all and that's Life of Pi. I believe this is not only the best film of 2012 but one of the best films I've seen in my life.
What makes Pi great is the different way it works. On the surface, if just taking the story for what it is, it's a great film in many ways. It has a likable lead and story and manages to make a boy floating on a raft entertaining. I can't say enough about how well crafted the confrontations between Pi and Parker are. Ang Lee uses the boat as a perfect device for their head to head "battles".
But of course, Life of Pi is more than just a great story. It is steeped with symbolism. The genius ending by Yann Martel of course gives the entire film a new face. Which Pi story was real? Of course the answer is that neither are meant to be truly real. What's important is what someone takes out of a story and what it means to them. As a film viewer this is applicable to us, listening to Pi's story or another movie's, we can interpret it whichever way we want - by whichever fits our personal code. In the early stages of the film much is made of Pi's personal beliefs (in many different religions) compared to the characters around him. His father believes in science, his mother more the heart. A man even believes in swimming pools as his salvation. This is all important because just as Pi is willing to believe in multiple religions and pick the important parts from each, one interprets Pi's story in their own way and in turn, their own life in their own way
But more than just that, to me all of Life of Pi is symbolic of life. We are all boys on a raft in the ocean, braving the coming and going storms and searching for our destination. It bears mentioning that brilliantly, Pi is not going home. He's going to a foreign, new place. Just as in the journey to life, we do not go to the past, we go to an uncertain future.
Regardless of whether Pi's story was real or not, what seems obvious is that Richard Parker is meant to represent Pi's internal psychi. Hearkening back to the argument about science vs the heart, Pi is the rational member on the boat and Parker is the ferocious, emotional one. One can read Pi's journey as his rationality fighting with his emotional self. Likewise one could argue the other animals on the boat if not real, represent parts of himself. The zebra perhaps is the side of him that wanted to feel like a victim after the crash, the hyena the side that wanted to flip out and get angry and the orangutan the one that thought his parents had a chance to be alive. Quickly his victim side and his family-loving side is engulfed by anger, which then recedes.
One tell that the entire journey is a symbolism of life is the carnivorous island. This is an island that most people visit. The carnivorous island is when we get to a place that's so comfortable and secure, that we threaten to let ourselves get stuck there, instead of moving onto new and unknown adventures in our life. Pi has to choose whether to stay in this place and be eaten by this security of life, or to move on and he chooses to move one.
The part that fascinates me the most about this story is the decision to make Parker leave, without turning back to Pi. If one accepts Parker is a representation of Pi's emotional internal self, what does his snub mean? Did Pi lose his heart and emotional self in that journey across the ocean? Did leaving the the security of the island (where he'd have been with Parker forever) require sacrificing that part of himself? Or is it that in the real world, the emotional self cannot roam free with the rational, controlled self. Just as Parker had to be caged up before they got on the ship. It took that journey on the ocean for Pi to come in touch with his animalistic self, but they could never be together in civilization and this is what breaks Pi's heart as he's telling the story.
Ang Lee is simply masterful. Aside from the crafting of scenes on the ship as I mentioned, the editing is perfect. Think about the scenes like Parker eating the goat in the cage, or the animals on the boat. Every scene transition is simply perfect. Every cut to Pi telling the story is crafted perfectly. This is a film where a master is truly in control of his medium. Of course I didn't even mention the all time great visual effects Life of Pi is not only perfectly crafted and written, but it is layered with fascinating depth and psychology as a movie about life itself, choices and the meaning we take out of our lives. This is a true film masterpiece and work of art.