Ryan McNeil
Think about the great stories you’ve been told throughout your life.
Did they always seem plausible? Did they make complete sense? Did they contain a plot hole or two? If you’re being honest, odds are the answer to one or more of those questions was likely “yes”. They are the sorts of details that lead many people to reject a narrative and respond with more questions than answers. What those people fail to realize is that the story they just heard could likely be retold in a way that will address all of those issues and become an iron-clad recounting…but the story won’t be nearly as good.
A writer is sent to meet a man named Pi who lives in Montreal (Irrfan Khan). The writer is told only that Pi has a great story to tell him. Upon meeting the writer, Pi immediately knows what story he has been sent to hear: It is the story of Pi’s great survival.
As a boy growing up in India, Pi was raised by well-to-do parents who own a zoo. Pi’s experiences as he matures lead him to be curious and fascinated by spirituality – many different forms of spirituality. By the time he is a young man, Pi identifies himself as a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim. This fascination with faith in all its forms is put to the test when Pi’s family decides to sell their menagerie and move to Canada by boat.
The boat gets caught in a terrible storm. While the boat and most of its passengers (including many of the animals) sink in the storm, Pi manages to escape on a lifeboat. He isn’t alone on his tiny craft; a few of the animals made a narrow escape from the sinking ship, including a hyena, a zebra, and a tiger named “Richard Parker”.
However, since the animals live by a code all their own, it isn’t long until the rule of the jungle takes over and it’s just Pi and Richard Parker left. So not only does Pi have to find a way to survive while being lost at sea, but he has to do it with a full-size Bengal tiger lurking nearby.
LIFE OF PI wants to sit us down and understand the art of storytelling. By ‘storytelling’ I’m not suggesting that it wants to draw emphasis to a great screenplay – although the film does have that – more the diminishing art of being able to enrapture an audience with a great tale. The point of what does and doesn’t make for a good story is expressly examined in LIFE OF PI, but in a way I don’t want to discuss. What I do believe warrants discussion is the sad fact that the stories being told aren’t any less amazing, nor are the few talented storytellers that recount them. What has changed is those of us who sit and listen to the stories.
Somewhere along the line veracity and plausibility took over. We in the audience stopped wanting to be entertained and to give ourselves over to wonder, and instead started wanting to outsmart the story…and likewise the storyteller. One wonders what sort of heckling L. Frank Baum would receive if he tried to regale a modern audience with a tale of a house that was dropped via cyclone into a faraway land filled with witches and wizards. Sadly, we have all grown up, and in so doing we have seemingly lost our ability to be amazed. To put it another way, it’s become harder and harder to “just go with it”.
It’s possible that we have arrived in this place with an increase in cynicism, or a decrease in imagination. However we got here, LIFE OF PI wants to take us back to where we were before. It wants us to believe in the fantastical and the adventurous. It reminds us of what truly makes for “a great story”, and the joy that comes from hearing “a great story” for the first time.
LIFE OF PI takes the theme of storytelling one step further, and suggests that there is a story that could make its audience “believe in God”. While this idea seems as though it is central to the film’s success, I don’t believe that it is. What I do believe is that the film wants us to remember the way that myths, gospel, parables, and fables are central to the belief structure of almost every religion. They were used both to explain the unexplainable, and to spread the word of faith. In many ways, Pi’s story of survival on the high seas feels like it is torn straight from the some religion’s scripture. It is fantastical, terrifying, and has a core theme of giving one’s self over to faith. It’s the sort of story that could make a person believe in God, the same way that the story of Jonah could. Whether or not it does is irrelevant.
The irrelevance of the story making a person believe is pointed out by Pi in an almost throwaway moment. Upon hearing that Mamaji calls Pi’s story the sort of thing that will make a person “believe in God”, Pi’s response is that one could get that same belief from a great meal. Pi knows full well that belief in the divine isn’t something that is proven, it is something that one experiences in a moment of pure emotional truth. It can indeed come from hearing a tale miraculous in nature, or it can just as easily come from a moment of sensual bliss that elevates beyond what mere mortals should be able to achieve. Think toy yourself about the sorts of things you experience and follow with a declaration of “Oh God”.
So could Pi’s story make a person believe in God? Certainly. If it doesn’t, is the story a failure? Not at all. Odds are it says more about the person than the story.
LIFE OF PI goes out of its way to make us, its audience, want to listen and believe in a great story. It unfurls with a visual richness employed to underlined its amazing nature, and told with a great deal of warmth. It’s a cinematic ode to the sorts of tales we were once told around a campfire in the woods, at houses of worship on the holy days, and in bed before it was time to go to sleep. Like all of those stories, it contains a great deal of wonder and richness – and like those stories, it is bound to stick with you long after it ends…
…whether you believe it or not.
Weeeeell, the “story that will make you believe in God” angle can’t be explained without spoiling the movie, so I will delay giving my thoughts on the matter. Too many people should see this movie fresh and experience it for themselves.
I can’t pretend to be interested in this at all. The trailer did nothing for me; it was way too much spectacle for me. Also, I don’t know if I necessarily want to experience this story again. The book traumatized the hell out of me. Besides, Ang Lee’s last movie was an all out disaster in my opinion. But all the good word is encouraging. I don’t know…
Now now – what have we learned about going into a film with preconceptions?
It does the book justice, so if you’ve read it, you know what you’re in for. It’s well worth a watch – in 3-D even!
Visually it’s stunning. I mean this and Samsara are probably the two best looking film this year, and Life Of Pi is the best looking 3D film, probably ever (It’s better than Avatar in terms of look). The middle section of the film is pretty fantastic. Engaging and intense.
However the ending almost kill the goodwill I have for the film. It’s clumsy and flat. I was thinking this could be on my top 10 list till that ending. Still recommend seeing this due to the first 100 minutes or so.
Get specific (since I doubt anyone gets this far unless they’ve watched the film) – what didn’t you like about the end?
Pi reveals to the author that he told the insurance company a second story. The revelation itself isn’t an issue, but the way it was framed in the movie, and then have the author spelling it out (“So, you are the tiger”) just feel like a clumsy exposition. Perhaps it’s because I am not a fan of the way the story was framed from the beginning (the author is such a blanket character).
I have to say though, I can stomach the ending better with time passing by. That middle section is just a visual wonder, and I wouldn’t seeing that again.
I follow.
Consider this though, in the novel, the insurance company puts it together themselves. In that framing, the revelation plays more like an M. Night Shyamalan super-twist. What we got here was more matter-of-fact, right down to the author’s tone when he said “…you were the tiger.”
I think that the character of the author is meant to be bland. We want the focus to be on Pi as the storyteller, not so much on his audience.
Thanks for nodding me in the direction of this one, Ryan. Appreciate it, because I enjoyed it quite a bit. The visuals were something to behold, of course, but it was really the spirituality of the story that roped me in.
I like your thoughts, though, in regards to the state of modern day storytelling. “We in the audience stopped wanting to be entertained and to give ourselves over to wonder, and instead started wanting to outsmart the story…and likewise the storyteller.” Ain’t that the truth? I definitely still like giving myself over to wonder. If only there was more of it.
Just days after I wrote this, I was reminded just how often this past year some people have pulled at the loose threads in the films they saw as if everything is supposed to be iron-clad.
It puts me off even more now – as if we’re trying to outsmart the storyteller.
You mention the spirituality – is it my imagination, or have there been a lot of films that discuss matters of faith lately?
Really glad you dug its visual splendour. Off the top of my head it might well be the most visually lush film of the year.
It definitely does have the “parable” feel to it, doesn’t it? I dont know if it could have made me believe in God if I were a non believer, but it is nice to see a film address spirituality openly. Gorgeous movie, great story… I’m just still unsure how I should think about the ending. Not certain whether or not I’m a fan of the interjection of amibiguity, you know? 🙁
Still a great flick either way!
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
I didn’t see all that much ambiguity in the end, Pi tells the other story and asks the writer (and by extension, us in the audience) which story we prefer. It’s not really a moment of ambiguity so much as it’s a direct underlining of how a story can be told in varying ways. The second story was “what happened”, the first was an adventurous way of telling it.
Ask yourself this though – how radically different would that ending, and by extension the whole experience of the film be, if M. Night Shyamalan had directed it?
The issues is that filmmakers strive to achieve a tone of realism instead of aiming for the fantastic. Case in point, i never questioned the ‘realism’ of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus or Fantastic Mr. Fox. But when films like X-Men, Batman and Taken strive for a grounded ‘realistic’ approach, it practically invites that criticism.
Less photo real and more whimsy is what I’m asking for.
Life of Pi is blends the two together (with the dialogue being rather explicit on this towards the end). The thematic stuff never captured by heart, but the storytelling (and the details of living with a Tiger on a Boat) quite did. I really liked this film.
Understood, but what we’re watching is still a work of fiction. Even when what we’re watching is non-fiction, we’re still watching the version of the non-fiction that the storyteller chooses to tell.
Almost makes you wish we approached *every* film with the amount of faith we put in DR. PARNASSUS.