The Spiritual Event of 2012

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2013)

A young man (Suraj Sharma) who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger (Richard Parker).
Let me first say that I am glad that M. Night Shyamalan did not end up directing this film. Could he have made it successful? Possibly. But, he does have a stigma attached to him that Ang Lee does not have. Lee may not be a critically-heralded director, but he is not a running joke, either. And after this film, he may start getting more offers.
Lee says in making this film, he had to "disguise a philosophical book as an adventure story". Although I have not read the book, this sounds spot on. The concepts presented are certainly religious, or at least spiritual, and there is always the feeling that there is more going on than the parts we can see with our eyes.
Roger Ebert called the film "a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery". I will grant that it was excellent storytelling, and would need at least two viewings to fully appreciate. The visual mastery is a bit harder for me to get behind. Some of the visuals are spectacular, while others I felt never quite seemed real enough. Technology has come a long way, but I still know a fake tiger when I see one.
The story works great, and carries itself in three stages. (Here is where the spoilers start, so stop now if you have not seen it.)
The first stage is the overt religious and spiritual stage. Once we get past the jokes about "Piscine Patel", we see a brief exploration of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Certainly nothing thorough, but we get the idea of how we can approach the world seeing one god as many, or many gods as one, and not find it to be contradictory. If the film is going to convince us to believe in God, we have to join him on this quest. (I suspect it goes deeper in the book.)
The second stage is during the days at sea. We have the reference to Richard Parker, here a name for a tiger but also the name of a classic shipwrecked sailor. In some ways, the story here parallels that of the real-life sailor and the Parker from the Edgar Allen Poe story. We also have the introduction of "Tsimtsum". I did not know the term while watching the movie, but felt it must have been important. (Why a Japanese ship had a Hebrew name is anyone's guess.) I now know it is a Kabbalah term about God's being simultaneously transcendent and within the world. A concept that is both contradictory and necessary. It also explains how Pi survives...
The third stage is the last few minutes, when we hear the parallel story about the cannibalistic cook. Is this the real story? Is it a metaphor for the other story, which was actually the true story? Is either one true? And ultimately, does it matter? Here, after we are immersed in faith for two hours, we are left to decide: which is the true story, and does it matter which? (With Pi the only survivor, any story he creates will be the only story that will be recorded as the true story -- he has essentially created his own world.)