Can a movie make you believe in God? With something like that, I don’t know if any single piece of entertainment has a prayer, even a movie as jaw droppingly beautiful and inspiring as “Life of Pi.”
Ang Lee’s movie shows us how a wondrous journey through nature can be a symbolic experience, and Yann Martel’s book shows how a story with fantasy and excitement may not prove the existence of God, but will allow us to recognize him and greet him like an old friend.
“Life of Pi” instills in us the fascination with religion and spirituality that its hero Pi shares. As a young boy in India, Pi discovers Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Some of their legends resonate with him as superhero comic book stories, exciting fables with drama, suspense and action. No one faith seems to speak to him above all, but the joy these tales bring allows him to feel the presence of a higher power throughout the world.
As a teenager, Pi (Suarj Sharma) is forced to relocate his family’s zoo to French Canada and is shipwrecked on the long sea voyage. He’s the only human survivor on a small lifeboat, but stuck along with him is Richard Parker, a playful name for a quite fierce Bengali tiger.
Their journey ashore is a long quest for survival, and the whole story seems to take place on an infinite plain of existence. The film’s 3-D allows sky to blend seamlessly with sea, the ocean’s depth stretching endlessly into the distance to create a luminous space of ethereal beauty. We see Pi’s raft resting on an untapped surface, and he seems to be a part of a naturalistic dreamscape, floating aimlessly in the cosmos of Mother Nature.
Telling this story is an adult Pi (Irrfan Kahn) to an audience of one, the book’s writer himself, Yann Martel (Rafe Spall). The writer has heard that Pi’s story will make him believe in God, and in essence, this story is an ultimate test of faith. A true believer is stripped of everything that is dear to him: his family, his home, his love and his health. Ultimately, he keeps his faith. God seemed to be there watching him the entire time.
To me, a Lutheran, this sounds an awful lot like the Book of Job. To other faiths, there may be similar stories. Martel and Lee take the symbolic story and provide it with grounded drama of visceral pleasures. There’s the tiger viciously devouring a hyena right in front of Pi’s eyes, the comedic excitement in watching Pi piss on the boat’s tarpaulin to mark his territory, the cataclysmic treachery of seeing a tanker engulfed underwater or the naturalistic tranquility of observing an ocean of meerkats in their natural habitat.
“Life of Pi’s” visual beauty alone speaks wonders. It is safe to say that “Life of Pi” is perhaps the best looking 3-D film ever made. The CGI used to create such a lifelike tiger and endless landscapes of water, sunlight, wildlife and greenery is impeccable. Different scenes fade in and out in layers over one another like characters and images floating in our memories. The evening lights of fish, lightning and insects jump out from the screen that would otherwise be specks of color on a 2-D plane. The 3-D gives us a POV that shows we’re only on the far side of a pointed pole from that wild tiger. And it immerses us in a moment that conveys the gravity of how small we look in front of that boat sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
But Lee communicates through his visual poetry what Martel could only presume with words; that tiger seems to be keeping us alive. It’s a moving, spiritual sentiment so impossible to estimate and even harder to envision on film. God will be there when we need him and leave again without warning. He appears not to be our friend but to let us know he is there. In another movie, the dangerous encounters would be set pieces, but here it seems to be nature speaking to us.
“Life of Pi” moved me deeply, both on a technical and emotional level. Few films can claim to be truly beautiful and have sincere stories in the process. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but in the end we’re left with faith. “Life of Pi” has granted me such faith in the movies and in the world.
4 stars
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