Life of Pi | Eastern North Carolina Now

    This was a lovely tale of hope and purposeful perseverance, filmed in robust celluloid, where Pi's adversity was still a feast for the eyes of the audience. The overwhelming design and computer graphics placed this visual epic in the forefront of the audience's senses, suspending any sense of disbelief, and captivating our innate desire to be part of Pi's experience, his story.
Pi Patel, with that cache of flying fish all about them, in the process of gaining control over Mr. Richard Parker: Above. And then, eventually gains control over the Bengal Tiger ... or is it himself?     Click the images to enlarge.
    As it is in most wonderful stories, there are highs, and yet so many lows in this film, with so many days adrift at sea, and at some point, there are multiple inflection points. And so it was after one of the terrible storms at sea, where it did appear that Mr. Richard Parker no longer had any desire to survive against these insurmountable odds to do so. With Pi enjoying some measure of control over the carnivorous tiger, he sought to nurse Mr. Richard Parker as best he could; however, his efforts were immediately buoyed by Pi's discovery of a floating island, loaded with edible fruit for Pi, and multitudes of meerkats for Mr. Richard Parker.
A despondent Mr. Richard Parker: Above. Pi Patel finding refuge in a tree over the luminescent waters surrounding the mysterious floating island, which has its own fantastic secrets: Below.     Click the images to enlarge.
    The mysterious floating island, fantastically, was also a carnivorous one, complete with acid waters at night, which killed the fish lured to its shallows to ultimately feed their flesh to the island. After a short respite, Pi gathers as many meerkats as he can, and departs to rather take his chances on the great Pacific, with his great former foe, and now his great friend - Mr. Richard Parker
The dramatic beauty of this cinematic masterpiece was abundant: Above and below.     Click the images to enlarge.
    Life of Pi, at a mere 126 minutes, is one of the fastest paced films that I have seen to tell such a rich and powerful tale.


    Director Ang Lee intuitively used all resources at his disposal to make this story work, and even pared the moderate star power of Tobey Maguire, as the real life novelist Yann Martel, after Maguire had finished all of his scenes with Indian character actor Irrfan Khan, who played the grown Pi Patel telling his "story to make one know God". Director Lee, after seeing the "dailies" of the two actors, felt that Maguire's star power overwhelmed the scenes with the venerable Indian actor, and, ultimately, overwhelmed the essence of the story, which was without any international stars whatsoever.

    This unconventional move, by Director Lee in supplanting relatively unknown actor Rafe Spall, ultimately reinforced the telling of this fine story of resilience, grace and uncommon dignity under astounding pressures to survive. I have seen almost all of the highest regarded films of 2012, and so far, Life of Pi was the best among them all, with Irrfan Khan, as the grown Pi Patel, one of my favorites for best supporting actor. Of course, Life of Pi did not win best picture at this years Oscars, and Irrfan Khan, was not nominated, which probably reassures that I am probably right in my judgments.

    Without being a spoiler here, if you have not seen this great film, I did intimate that the film had two possible stories, which I will convey had some interesting twists. What are these twist that I speak of?


    It may be best explained if I leave you with this brief exchange at the end of the film once the grown Pi Patel was finished weaving his fantastic tale to the novelist, Yann Martel ...

    Writer: "So your story does have a happy ending."

    Adult Pi Patel: "Well, that's up to you. The story's yours now."

    Rated PG. Released on DVD March 12, 2013



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