The
Life of Pi is an epic novel written by Yann Martell and later
adapted to film by Director Ang Lee. The story depicts Piscine Molitor, known
as Pi, an Indian young man with a genuine curiosity for the spiritual and the
exotic zoo animals of his father’s zoo. Shortly after his families’ immigration
to Canada began, the ship they were traveling in sinks after a difficult
encounter with a storm leaving Pi on a small lifeboat with a dangerous Bengal
Tiger. Although there is major criticism about movie adaptations of novels,
this is one of the few gems that break away from the stereotype.
What makes this novel and movie captivating to the
viewer is the story and the challenges it rests upon the audience. Where the spectacular
story of Pi’s 227-day survival on a lifeboat with a Tiger is certainly filled
with adventure, the audience is challenged by the underlying question: Okay,
what really
happened? With the screen play and the context, that is exactly what
the directors and the author intended. They chose to let the audience decide
the ending to the story that they liked most. The better story being the one
where Pi miraculously survives the shipwreck and the lifeboat with the tiger
and other deadly exotic animals while astonishingly living day by day or the one
where he simply survives, the animals were imagined incorporation's of his
mother and other passengers, and he waits out his rescue. The better story is
the one that challenges the unbelievable and here is why.
With the use of Computer-generated imagery (CGI), the
director attempted to compel the audience to pick the better story and did a
wonderful job. In one of the most notable scenes throughout the film, the CGI
effects work to visualize the spiritual nature of Pi’s situation. Rachel Wagner
writes in her article Screening Belief:
The Life of Pi, Computer Generated Imagery, and Religious Imagination that
“The most beautiful, awe-inspiring moments in the film—including the impossibly
gorgeous morning scene on a “completely still” ocean—are digitally rendered.”
Wagner’s statement holds true. The magnificent effects introduce the idea of
interconnectedness. While the CGI effects are not "real" or "true", the director and author try to convince the viewer and reader that "reality" is beside the point. Everyone chooses what they want reality to be.
In that moment Wagner describes that we, the audience, do not know where the sky meets the sea because we are seeing
Pi as he lives and experiences this moment of wonder and connectedness to the
world around him regardless of his situation. We are compelled to join in his
mystical experience. By merging the sky and the
sea we, as spectators, see and feel the joining of the everything in the
universe. The idea of interconnectedness stems from Hinduism, one of the three
religions that Pi practices throughout the film. The fact that Pi practices
three distinct religions only rectifies his point that there are many truths in
the universe just as there are two different stories yet both have the same
ending similar to many religions.
Many
more scenes, different in context and similar in intent, compel the viewers to
pick the better story. Another such scene takes place at night when Pi is in
the luminescent sea. The glorious whale that jumps out of the water and the
glowing sea life enhance the already mystic nature of the film. Everything
below the water is alive and thriving, each with their own purpose yet
connected by the same ocean and the same distinct beauty.
As in the book, the film portrays the other story as
short and to the point; where the better story is over 200 pages the other
story is 30 and the same applied in the film. We, the audience, are so fixated
with endings in order consummate our inner need to know what happened. Endings serve to put the puzzle pieces
together so that nothing is left imagined or unanswered because we simply must know. Now what would the audience
do if they didn’t know?
The true question that Yann Martel asks is this, “What
do you
believe really happened?”. If the endings are the same, what would make the
better story? Ang Lee is simply our captain guiding us through the voyage for us
to pick a side, preferably the better story.
