The Lotus Flower in the Heart

Rating: 9/10 (27 November 2012)

A sad, violent and cruel story disguised as a fairy tale about a kid taming a tiger at sea.
In Ang Lee's hands the book-to-film adaptation was thankfully not turned into something of a young Robinson Crusoe or a love story between a volleyball and a fat Hanks. At the same time none of the magical realism "feel" of the novel was lost in the adaptation / visual interpretation. Eventually the very bloody message of the story (humans are essentially beasts, we create religion or hallucinate about faith to help ourselves forgetting our bestial nature) was impressively preserved without the need to show almost any gore.
Most importantly, the very sensitive topic of the conflicts and dependency of faith, religions, science and nature was beautifully narrated in the movie. The technicality demonstrated in Life Of Pi is everything on a magnificent, grandeur scale, yet at the same time the technicality does not over-shine Lee's nature as an intellectual – his yearning and pursuit for purity and beauty.
I remember coming across a film review that called Lee's Life Of Pi "preachy", which seems to echo quite a few reviews on the book. Whoever said that, in my opinion, made a very basic mistake in understanding the purpose of the story. Both Martel's novel and Magee's script, not only never attempted to coax people to flock to religion or faith, but also put a rather nasty joke on religion and its forms. Yet at the same time in the end the protagonist of the story was able to maintain his faith, despite having some not-so-mild-natured joke cast onto his religions. "Preachy"? Please. This looks more like a sacrilegious story to me.
When I read the book, one of the things that impressed me the most was that Pi never for once cursed, sworn or truly lost it while drifting at sea, amidst all his suffering and misery. My guess is that reverence and hope never really left him, and that, is probably the true distinction between having a faith and not having one. Lee gave this rare, controlled and optimistic narration a beautiful stretch in his film – Pi had a happy ending by textbook definition. In the end, some might think of Lee as some semi-delusional intellect with wishful thinking, he is probably more willing to believe in the deity and beauty in human nature instead of looking into our bestial instincts. Or maybe, he is like the Indian girl in the film dancing Bharatanatyam – there is a blossoming lotus flower hidden somewhere in his heart.
I am far more pessimistic than he is. I am constantly on guard in case my Richard Parker ambushes me and tears me into pieces, although I also know, there is probably still a lotus flower hidden somewhere in my heart.