We Don't Need White Point of Entry Characters to enjoy a marvelous film about Indian People

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2012)

My expectations were up. The preview showed some computer graphics that were some of the best I've ever seen. I had hoped that this film would be a redemption for the fiasco that was, "Avatar: The Last Air Bender," in terms of Hollywood having the integrity to cast an Indian fantastic story with an Indian protagonist complete with huge budget and high production value. As the lights went down, coming attractions past, I saw I was in for a long ride within the first two minutes of the film, as the story would be told to an American novelist in Canada, begging for a good story to write about after living in India for two years, "Because India is cheaper than Spain," while writing a novel set in Spain that he threw away. Already, my attention is being diverted from where it really belongs... this amazing story that on it's own is full of beauty and majesty, but cut short too many times to get a soggy corn flakes response from the American writer, played forgettably by Rafe Spall. I was wondering why Ang Lee felt the need to leave this spectacular story of mythic proportions about a shipwrecked boy, played very strongly by Suraj Sharma, surviving with a Bengali Tiger to this retelling motif as if the story needed to be validated by the American writer, to be worthy of the telling? This is a film I would love to reedit and can the whole present day part of the film, and stay with the journey of Pi... which is really beautiful. As it's an adaption of the book by Spanish writer Yann Martel, it would have been much better as a film loosely based on the novel, with a different ending and different approach to the story telling all together, in my humble opinion. I'm left wondering when the big Hollywood Studios like 20th Century Fox will have some courage that audiences have enough emotional intelligence to have a visceral connection with protagonists that are of a different race, different age, different language, different culture... think about how black folks love Kung Fu theater movies, Jamaicans loved westerns for years, and white American males have always been the largest consumers of Black Gangster Rap, and Hip Hop in general when it comes to buying the albums. So Hollywood, go ahead, get some courage to tell stories that maintain integrity to the cultures they take place in... folks will still come out and consume the product, and you won't leave so many disgruntled folks who gag on your outsider point of entry characters who do nothing to enhance the telling of the stories! Be Brave!!!!!!!