Life of Pi

Director Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is a marvel of filmmaking and beauty.

 

Pi Patel, played admirably by Suraj Sharma, is a young Indian boy, who survives the sinking of a ship in which all aboard, including his family, perished.  The only other survivor of the wreck is a Bengal tiger being transported by Pi’s zookeeper father and, together, they share the same lifeboat and an extraordinary adventure as they fight for survival against the sea and each other.

The adult Patel relates the story to a young writer played by Rafe Spall as a tale that will make him believe in God.  What the story will make anyone believe in is the magnificence of nature from the mirror of the phosphorescent sea to the fires of the luminescent sky, all breathtakingly captured by cinematographer Claudio Miranda.   

Ang Lee is noted for his ingenuity, as evidenced by the wire-fighting in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: here, it is the incredibly “real” creation of the magnificent, computer animated tiger, the meekrats, the whale, the flying fish and the floating island. 

 

I urge you to see this fantastic work of art and take in its beauty.  Those who can’t accept it will make do, as have some critics, with the false story Patel relates for those who can’t accept magic.

 

I give Life of Pi a 4+ out of 5.