Breathtaking visuals complement provocative tale

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2013)

In Life of Pi, Ang Lee's philosophical spectacle, makes for a fascinating viewing, succeeding on multiple levels of enjoyment. There's the adventure itself, a massive sojourn of a boy in a lifeboat - with a Bengal tiger. And then there's the meaning of the story itself, which is happily left ambiguous. It's also about the spirit and resourcefulness of man, and above all it's about hope and optimism.
Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma), named after a famous pool in France, is on his way from his home in India with his mother, father, brother, and a lot of animals (the family owns a zoo) aboard a Japanese vessel, bound for Canada. During a particularly terrifying thunderstorm, the ship sinks, and Pi finds himself on a stocked lifeboat with a few of the lucky creatures (none human) and no idea of his location.
The animals are inconsequential except for one - the tiger. How does one survive in a lifeboat with an untamed beast who'd love to make a meal out of him? It's not easy, and luckily our Pi is quite resourceful. Rest assured, though, there is no silent understanding between the two, even as hunger and thirst rob each of his strength. They are not friends. They each wish to survive, although a case can be made that Pi, at least, has no intention of harming/eating the tiger.
The tiger is not stupid - oh, quite the contrary, he is a cunning brute. He can't be cowed, and he won't allow Pi to have dominion over the lifeboat, which forces our human hero to construct a sort of floating annex to the boat, tethered and filled with supplies.
Of great interest to me were the tantalizing, beautiful aquatic scenes. Whether it was the sight of thousands of fish flying through the air at our passengers or a glimpse into the remarkably clear water to see gorgeous - and sometimes quite large - marine life blithely swimming by, there's rarely a slow moment. Picking up the slack in such matters, of course, is how Pi survives, how he keeps his wits about him, how he manages to get by with a ravenous tiger so close by.
If you think that Lee is trying to present a moralistic story to us - he touches quite a bit on religion, for example - you are right. But it's not heavy handed by any means. To illustrate this, Pi (as an adult relating his tale to a writer) notes that when he was a young lad in India, he joined up with several different religions, a way to show us that he was having trouble finding his way, choosing the right path. As his father remarks to him at dinner one night, it is fine to be different, but in the end one must choose a path. Net thing you know, Pi is afloat on a raft, drifting aimlessly across the Pacific Ocean. He still had not found his way.
In the end, Lee doesn't appear to be trying to teach his audience. He is not moralizing; he is presenting choices and explaining how, in this situation, a single man found his way through life, not simply to survive but to live. This is not a movie about a boy and his pet tiger roaming the seven seas; it's about learning about one's inner self and finding an exciting direction in which to take it. And even apart from the symbolic journey that Pi involuntarily undertakes, there is a second moral quandary posed at the very end that will get the viewer thinking. And that, to me, is the real selling point of this movie. The beauty, the majesty, the excitement of the cross-sea trip is almost surreal - but sufficiently realistic to allow one to enjoy its wonder. Yet that final question, posed by the adult Pi, seals the deal. This is a movie best seen on a large screen, the better to appreciate its epic scope.