Now Playing: Life of Pi

Watched Life of Pi as part of a double-feature this weekend. [It’s hard trying to use up what was supposed to be two years’ worth of tickets in four months. You get very unlikely pairings when this happens] I had read the novel years ago, when I was still ensconced in the tiny room of my parents’ abode. I loved the novel, staying up late into the night to finish chapters despite having 6am shifts at work. Needless to say, I had high hopes for the movie.

Pi? It’s really really good. The acting is pretty amazing: Suraj Sharma spent so much of his screen time alone, it must have been really daunting to react only to a green screen (or did they use real animals? If they…double wow). It is unabashedly Canadian (set in Montreal, about an Indian family bound for Winnipeg) – so, perhaps that turned some American audiences off. And the effects … oh the effects! They are so good, I was slightly uncomfortable is some parts (read: any part where they were underwater – agoraphobia really acted up). If nothing else, Pi is a really beautiful movie adaptation of an equally gorgeous book.
I have always found the concept of ‘magic realism’ (so pervasive in European/Eastern stories and mythologies) to be difficult to translate into the Hollywood of movies. Pi is not an action-adventure nor a fantasy nor a travelogue. It is neither fiction nor non-fiction. We do like our labels, and genres are just one convenient way to categorise things. But what happens when something is all and nothing at the same time? The plot is set up with this simple premise: the author who wants to hear (and eventually write) Pi’s story says that he was promised a tale that would convince him of the existence of God. What follows is a naïve and yet wise approach to theism, an almost-childlike exploration of the big questions. In the end, Pi poses a simple question: “which do you prefer?”. How can something be real and magic at the same time? This is only a problem if you believe that the concepts are mutually exclusive. I can’t really talk about much more here without there being some serious spoilers, so I shall stop. But. I would LOVE to get a coffee with you (cyber or no) and chat about it.

Oh. Right. 4 out of 5 stars.