Life of Pi

Just this afternoon (December 5th 2012) I happened to witness this film 'Life of Pi' and since I have not read any reviews on this film save that of Namrata Joshi's in the magazine 'Outlook', and though I had heard about Yann Martel's book but have neither read the book nor any reviews about it, I decided to briefly write in a paragraph or two about what I made of the film : -

(Please replace the word 'humankind' wherever the word 'Mankind' or 'Man' is found for political correctness)

Man loves to tell stories. The stories that Mankind has woven throughout the ages can be broadly classified (specially since the Age of Reason) into two main types - Those that speak about the triumph of Man and his spirit; and those that speak about the triumph of Man as a rational animal. The stories that spoke about the triumph of Man and his spirit spoke eloquently about his escapades in a world of mystery and magic - a world where the vagaries of nature would threaten to ravage him but of course, he would emerge successful. He would succeed perhaps due to an assortment of human capacities like bravery and courage; of honour and self-respect; of self-sacrifice and patronage; of love and sacrifice; of generosity in the face of personal deprivation and so on. Some of them would even dwell on Man's weaknesses like greed (Merchant of Venice) or lust (Ravana's bete noir in Ramayana) or other weaknesses like that of gambling (Yudhistira in Mahabaratha) or jealousy between cousins; but essentially what would ultimately win the day would be the human spirit.

Since the Age of Reason, especially so in the late 19th C and 20th C, the stories are largely centered on the triumph of reason as the prime quality in the triumph of man. Even if other stories are being told, what is largely being listened to with any degree of credibility are stories where the foundations of reason are not shaken.

This film tells a story of a boy who is named Piscin Molitor by his father, who due to intolerable scorn by his peers, rechristens himself as Pi. His father runs a sort of menagerie in Pondicherry, India, in a complex that also hosts a botanical garden where his mother works. Years after the French have left the colony, and in the 1970s, the family facing a financial crunch to keep the zoo going, decides to shift base to Canada. The father decides to transport the animals by sea and with them, the family too. He embarks on a scheme where he would realize a small fortune by selling those animals in his new country that would provide for all their upkeep. The ship is wrecked in a storm and the entire crew and the whole family save for the main protagonist Pi who is then a youthful lad and a few animals survive to end up in a small raft. The other animals die in an internecine fight of survival and Pi and a royal Bengal tiger are left to battle it out for survival. I to rush to the conclusion of the film where Pi makes it clear to an eager listener ( a writer struggling to make it in this world) that - given that there is a basic story where a group of caged animal get shipwrecked with his family in the Pacific but he survives to tell the tale, he is compelled to relate the circumstances of his survival in two ways - one is a way with magical circumstances and another is a way that seems more probable by human reason.

The tale that the film director evidently prefers - because he chooses to film the story in this manner - is the way of a magical universe, where despite great turmoil and devastation, he is magically provided for and nourished; he is both protected both magically and also due to his own spirit. This speaks of a universe where perhaps God still exists, but before showing that He exists, there is considerable shaking-up and churning, so that by the end of it all you are left doubting what sort of God is He that could cause a protagonist to undergo such things? In this scheme of the Universe there is much greater acceptance and meaning where the loss of the family - mother, father and brother - seems to be accounted for and accepted with much more meaning. This universe seems to be more holistic and sees man together with all animals as a necessary and interdependent system.

The other story, of course, is one that seems much colourless with pain and despair and deaths of the family and others told without magic but where reason perhaps feels more comfortable. Nothing makes meaning and everything is just a rolling on of unrelenting circumstance. These seem to be the stories of science. But the director strongly suggests that these stories too are equally unreal. If one goes to see, perhaps all stories - that of the triumph of reason and the triumph of the spirit of man are both unreal, but perhaps the latter is more meaningful. Then of course one can think of several levels of psychological importance and symbolisms - what could the tiger represent? Could it be the hero's triumph over a mother's persona?

The character Pi seems to mouth a regret that when it was time for separation, the Tiger never paused to look back towards him - there was no closure for his relationship with the tiger and all his efforts to ensure it survives. But the preference of the film director shows what the tiger sees in its mind's eye with fondness - a smiling Pi behind it, feeling profoundly happy that it has finally found safety!