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The film announces its bold intentions pretty early, as Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) supposedly has a story that will make an audience believe in God. A visit from a writer (Rafe Spall) prompts Pi to recount his childhood days in French India, where his parents named him “Piscine” after his uncle’s favorite swimming pool in France. After his classmates dub him “Pissing,” he shortens his name but still can’t shake his outsider status. He reads existential literature and explores various religious faiths; though raised as a Hindu, he begins to seek comfort in Islam and Christianity as well, much to the dismay of his father (Adil Hussain).

Pi’s recounting of his childhood establishes a suitably whimsical tone, particularly when it keys in on his parents’ zoo. Full of exotic creatures that helps to shape young Pi’s childlike (and perhaps naïve) view of the world, the zoo also presents Lee’s lush visual palette and production design, both of which help to outrun the clunky mechanics of adapting Martel’s talky frame story. The elder Pi’s narration often intrudes, and, in an ominous sign, provides an unnecessary commentary, an expected side effect of a novel that’s built on internal narration.

The trickiest part comes during the film’s main conflict; when faced with financial difficulties, Pi’s father decides to sell his zoo and move his family to Canada. Along the way, the ship encounters a massive storm and capsizes, leaving Pi stranded in the middle of the ocean on a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Since he was a child, Pi has been in awe of the beast and has insisted (despite his father’s admonitions) that he has sensed a soul behind the eyes of Richard Parker. His faith in this--and his various gods--is tested when the two endure a 200+ day odyssey at sea, where they drift among unfavorable tides and encounter a seemingly mythical man-eating island.

It’s the stuff of high fantasy, and it’s wonderfully embellished by Lee, whose visual flourishes and bold, painterly compositions transform Pi’s story into a fable. Martel’s novel is pretty dense stuff and mostly propelled by Pi’s internal monologues, but this section of the novel makes a graceful transition to the screen. Lee’s paints on a canvas of pure cinema, and Claudio Miranda’s photography works in tandem with Michael Danna’s score to create some dazzling, rich sequences that are a joy to behold. Even the 3D, which is usually a trimming I rarely note, is astounding in its clarity and depth. This is a majestic, soaring, and vibrant recollection of a man’s horrific, harrowing tale, an approach that seems contradictory but is eventually justified by a turn late in the film.

That turn is the film’s most contentious point, though it’s inherent in the source material itself. As Pi’s story becomes more outlandish, his audience (and ergo, the film’s audience) becomes more wary about its veracity, so the third act tackles this head on with ponderous and obvious sermonizing that tacks the film’s message right on your nose before hammering it in for good measure. The twist in events is the film’s conceit, and, without it, “Life of Pi” would be a relatively straightforward survival tale. I’ve seen “Life of Pi” referred to as young adult lit in some circles, which is a disservice since Martel tackles heavy themes concerning the relationship of faith and reality; both Pi and the audience must confront this relationship and decide how it works out. The point is obvious (and is made even more obvious by the dialogue), but it amounts to a freshman level reading of how these forces work, especially since Pi himself should probably be okay with his audience’s healthy dose of doubt (after all, he can’t even stick to one faith himself).

Further muddying the thematic waters is just how much of a downer either story is, anyway; sure, Lee’s grandiose vision renders Pi’s ordeal into something of a romanticized dream, but even it doesn’t come without sobering truths, particularly as it pertains to his relationship with Richard Parker. Just as William Blake employed a tiger as a reflection of God’s contradictions in its fearful symmetry, so too does Martel’s novel see Richard Parker as the crucial symbol for Pi’s faith. In Richard Parker, Pi observes all of the gods’ possibilities: their capacity for mercy (that Richard doesn’t eat Pi alive is a miracle), terror, and even ambivalence, as the film’s lasting impression is Richard Parker’s disinterested glance and unceremonious exit.

For a film that often deals in rousing, life-affirming sentiment, “Life of Pi” engages this ambivalence in a strange, off-putting way; even its structure doesn’t even seem to be all that concerned with the inherent drama of the situation since Pi’s survival is an inevitability. His fate isn’t the point, of course, but the film is ultimately difficult to engage; it’s a wonderful movie to look at, but it’s not one that’s consistently compelling to truly watch and absorb. Technically, it’s crafted with incredible precision, from the lushness of the visuals to the effects that bring Richard Parker to life (this is one of the most seamless and believable uses of CGI in ages). Newcomer Suraj Sharma even shoulders the film admirably as the adolescent Pi; his performance is marked by dignity and humility that conjures up sympathy.

Both Lee and Fox deserve credit for the risk taken here; Martel’s novel is a difficult one to adapt (it’s even garnered the “unfilmable” in some circles), and Lee was apparently given free range to tackle it without a whole lot of star power at his disposal as well. I’ll stop just short of calling it an admirable failure; like the book itself, the film just leaves me adequately whelmed. Forget God--I would have just settled for believing all of this really meant something.

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originally posted: 11/24/12 02:25:09
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