For my first post, I’d like to give a short review to Life of Pi. Pi is based on the book by Yann Martel (published in 2001) and directed by Ang Lee. Don’t believe me? Here’s the book cover and Wikipedia link (via image).
Spoiler alert!!
To summarize it, the film centers around Piscine Molitor Patel, who was named after a swimming pool in France. He is now in his 50s and playing story time with a book author. The story of his long journey begins as young Piscine, a boy who was being picked on and nicknamed “Pissing Patel” for his name. Later he manages to change his name to “Pi” and now follows various religions. To make this short, Life of Pi is the tale of a young boy and his family (parents and older brother Ravi) who own a zoo in India but later on when Pi is a teenager, decide to leave for Canada (due to political turmoil in India) and take the animals with them. After a big (and I mean big, huge, heavy!) storm sweeps and sinks the Japanese ship on which they boarded along with their animals, Pi is all on his own on a lifeboat. But oh wait, there’s a zebra in with him… and an orangutan… and a hyena! Well, that will be interesting later on. From then on, the film embarks into a visually stunning journey of survival. Check out a still from one of my favorite scenes:
A beautiful but troubling scene. No animals were hurt in the making of this film!
Oh yeah, there’s a tiger too! And his acting is superb. I hear Oscar buzz already.
Pictured above is one of the best human-to-animal interactions I’ve seen in a film. The way Pi and the tiger (Richard Parker) interact, from a very rocky start to this partnership of survival, is touching. Gotta admit that this film can be a tear-jerker for many out there. Also, watch it in 3D. This film looks gorgeous in it; and it’s not because I work at a movie theater, because I don’t! You’ll thank me later.
Life of Pi gets a big
