Life of Pi

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2013)

From Oscar winning, and BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Brokeback Mountain), I saw the trailer and reviews for this film, most said it was a films that you had to see in 3D, so I went to see it in the hope it would be worth it. Basically a Writer (Rafe Spall, Timothy's son) has been told that immigrant Piscine "Pi" Patel (Irrfan Khan) from Pondicherry, India, now living in Montreal, Canada, has an amazing story to tell, and he is keen to hear it for his next book, and it starts by explaining that he was named after a swimming pool, Piscine Molitar, his first name being pronounced "pissing", so he changed it to Pi, like the maths term. In flashback, we see his family owned a zoo, five year old Pi (Gautam Belur) gained an interest in animals, especially Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger named due to a clerical error, he even puts himself in danger trying to feed it, his father Santosh (Adil Hussain) forcing him to watch it kill a goat to show its carnivorous nature. Twelve year old Pi (Ayush Tandon) is raised Hindu and vegetarian, but he finds interest in the Christian and Islam religions as well, he follows all three at once, and later in life he would lecture in Kabbalah at university. Aged sixteen Pi (Orange Rising Star Award nominated Suraj Sharma) is devastated when the family closing the zoo to move to Canada, meaning the animals will be sold, so they all board a Japanese freighter called Tsimtsum, with a rude cook (Gérard Depardieu) on board. One night the ship encounters a heavy storm, causing it to sink, Pi tries to find his family, but he is thrown into a lifeboat by the crew, all he can do is watch the ship go down with the crew and his family drowning. Alone in the middle of the ocean he is joined by an injured zebra and an orangutan, but he gets a shock from a spotted hyena who jumps out and kills the zebra and mortally wounds the orangutan, but the real shock is Richard Parker jumping out and killing the hyena. To keep himself safe from the tiger Pi finds food rations and builds himself a smaller raft to float a safe distance next to the lifeboat, and he feeds the tiger caught fish to protect himself from the animal, and he collects rain water for both of them to drink, and he shows compassion putting a ladder on the lifeboat to help the tiger out of the ocean when it jumps in. One night a large whale comes out of the water, and it causes many of the supplies to disappear, and starving he can only eat raw fish, and he realises to survive he should be able to get in the boat with the tiger, so over time he trains Richard Parker to let him in, and he finds that helping the tiger is keeping him alive. Near the point of exhaustion and with hardly any strength the lifeboat drifts during the night onto a floating island with a forest, edible plants, fresh water pools and hundreds of meerkats, so Pi and the tiger can regain their strength, but time passes and water turns acidic killing the fish, and he finds the plants are carnivorous, so collecting supplies they leave the island. After a long time at the sea the lifeboat finally reaches land, the coast of Mexico, Pi crawls onto land and rests on the sand, and he sees tiger Richard Parker walking towards the jungle and briefly stopping, he expects it to look back and acknowledge him, but he eventually walks through and is never seen again, while Pi is rescued by people who take him to hospital, he weeps because of the tiger leaving him. In hospital the sinking of the freighter is causing concern for some insurance agents, and they want to hear the account from the only known survivor, he tells the story he has which they do not believe, so then he fabricates a tale that is less fantastic but believable that he was in the lifeboat with his mother, a sailor with a broken leg, and the cook. In present day the Writer is asked by adult Pi which story he believes and prefers, he finds the parallels in the story that he concocted for the insurance guys, and he answers that he finds the story with the tiger much more incredible, 227 days at sea was a remarkable feat, and he is allowed to take this story to use for a novel. Also starring Tabu as Gita Patel, Andrea Di Stefano as the Priest and Shravanthi Sainath as Anandi. Newcomer Sharma gives a very endearing performance as the young man struggling against the odds to survive, computer animated tiger Richard Parker is a convincing character because he is so realistic looking, I completely agree that this has to be seen in 3D, for the appearance of the tiger, the exciting sequences with storms, whales and underwater moments, you could argue it is similar to Cast Away, but on a boat, and there should be a little more plot, but it has the moments of tension, you sympathise with the characters, and it really feels like a journey to watch, a great fun adventure. It won the Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Music for Mychael Danna and Best Visual Effects, and it was nominated for Best Editing, Best Song for "Pi's Lullaby", Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published and Best Motion Picture of the Year, it won the BAFTAs for Cinematography and Special Visual Effects, and it was nominated for Best Film, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Original Music, Production Design and Sound, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, and it was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Good!