Life of Pi

My first introduction to Ang Lee was when my mom and I saw the double feature of “Sense & Sensibility” and “Leaving Las Vegas”. I am happy that they showed “Sense” first because I told my mom we had to leave after watching the first few minutes of “Leaving Las Vegas” (if anyone remember those first minutes they would know why I was uncomfortable watching that with my mom). Ang Lee went on to direct three fine films after “Sense and Sensibility” (“The Ice Storm”, “Ride with the Devil”, and “Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon”) before his mainstream crash “The Hulk”. While I could defend “the Hulk” to some extent, I wasn’t satisfied with Nick Nolte’s rat villain to call it a happy movie experience. He then bounced back with “Brokeback Mountain”. Honestly, I wasn’t even aware he had directed two other features (“Lust Caution”, and “Taking Woodstock”-which I will add to my Netflix queue) prior to “Life of Pi”. I should mention prior to all of these films is my favorite Ang Lee film “Eat Drink Man Woman”.

Something I always remembered about Ang Lee was when I watched the director’s commentary to “Sense” he talked about how in his movies he always tries to set the tone of the film during a scene where food is eaten. In “Sense” there is cold meat on the table. In “Life of Pi,” the meal was between Pi and his interviewer: it looked a like a traditional vegetarian Indian meal with fresh, warm naan. “Life of Pi” was written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. According to wonderful Wikipedia, it was rejected by five publishing houses before finally being accepted. Imagine the regret of those publishers-Doh! Reportedly, Mr. Martel wrote it because he was lonely and was looking for direction in his life.

Based on the recommendation of Mr. Ebert, I saw the film in 3D. In his review, he writes, “I've never seen the medium better employed.” Ebert is still not a believer in the technical enhancement but with the addition of his last endorsement of 3D, Scorsese’s ‘Hugo,” he may slowly be converting. “Life of Pi” is a visual epic. As a teenager I used to think about what films would be “fun to trip to”. This would be a fun film to trip to. Lee is successful with his visual effects because they are not thrown in for artificial decoration, but to demonstrate the grandiosity the film aims to deliver.

Pi’s story, as claimed by Pi’s uncle, is a story that will make you believe in God. “The Life of Pi” isn’t as much a story about faith, which let’s face it can be dry and boring, but about the vibrancy that can be had when one sees God in the mundane. I don’t want to be a spoiler to the end of the film but there are two versions of Pi’s story of being out on sea that he tells the audience. At the end of the film, I was puzzled when Pi asked his interviewer about the story he prefers. The interviewer tells Pi “the one with the tiger” Pi answers “so it is with God”. What does Pi mean when he says “so it is with God”? After searching the net I found this on gradesaver: “This quote is essential to the story-Yann Martel himself has described 'the better story' as the novel's key words. Here Pi enlarges the themes of truth, and story versus reality to encompass God, and all of life. If there is no way to prove that God's existence is true or untrue, and if the assumption of the truth either way in no way makes a factual difference, then why not choose to believe what Pi believes to be "the better story"-that God exists? This passage thus connects these central themes in the book, and so weaves everything together.”

Without being asked to, the audience is put into a dilemma as to which story they believe. True to the point, it is irrelevant which story is true. Pi could have had a mental breakdown and gone schizo imagining he was on a ship with a tiger. “So it is with God” is to imply that while you can't prove or disprove God’s existence, the better story is that there is a God. If this is supposed to be the clincher, then I am not sure I am a buyer. As a believer in God, is my reason for believing is because it makes for a better story? Um, no. The alternative is a much better story. This reminded me about the time I first heard about Hoyle’s fallacy. “According to Hoyle's analysis, the probability of cellular life evolving was about one-in-1040000. He commented: The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” Now to me, if the watch doesn’t have a watchmaker that would be more amazing. But I guess that is why I find atheists puzzling.