Beautiful allegory..

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2013)

This movie is truly a stunning work of art and the novel that inspired it goes into depths that many of us rarely explore. It draws emotions throughout and the beautiful cinematography and special effects make fantasy come to life. The story bursts with hidden meanings and metaphors designed to evoke memories and feelings from your subconscious that you may have buried long ago, and parts of it - symbolically - will almost certainly overlap distinct times in anyone's lives.
However I was left feeling unsatisfied.. I found the author and creator, the man who gave birth to all this wonder a lonely man - and I feel it deeply throughout his story. From a psychological perspective, perhaps a man who wants unconditional love but can't give it, someone who would choose the blue pill instead of digging deeper and finding answers to the complex questions he asks himself. He desperately seeks to find the soul and the divinity in the world - yet when a roadblock shows itself he gives up and feels he has to choose between rationality & spirituality, reality & divinity. Therein lies his struggle.
Once we are able to step away and see the big picture, understand that cause has effect - and that there is no evil in that - we will find release. The adult Pi suggests that God is a choice of self delusion to make the harsh realities of life easier to digest. Consider the possibility that our search for harmony in all its reality, through actions, holy books, and everything else that exists out there is part of what we call "God" - and we form an active part of it. The concept of the divine is not out there to satisfy a need we have, it is there to inspire us to be it and to make the world more like it. If the tiger is seen as having the main purpose of keeping us alive and not a creature we truly love and wish to give comfort to, it is not going to look back and give a thanking roar before it walks away, and it will not give us peace. This is a metaphor of my own.
I find it ironic that one of the main pillars of the movie is faith and hope, yet they seem to be portrayed as simply a means for survival and self delusion, and true faith is exactly what is renounced in the final metaphor and ending phrase.
I'm sure the author was able to use this beautiful and complex story as a way of expressing his internal struggle - but I'm afraid he was not able to find piece by the end of it. I'd love to read something from him later in his life, where Pi allows himself to cry, to mourn, to be honest - and still find divinity in all the world's mess and reality, and in a tiger's hunger..