I watched Life of Pi last night, and I rewatched parts of it this morning. Life of Pi
was a reward-winning movie that was released in 2012, and it is based
on a 2001 book by Yann Martel. It is about Pi, an Indian (from India)
whose dad owns a zoo. Pi as a child explores different religions----the
gods of India, Christianity, and Islam. Pi admires the heroism of
Indian gods, along with Vishnu's cosmic significance, but he is also
drawn to the love of the Christian God (though he says that the doctrine
of Jesus taking the punishment for people's sins initially did not make
sense to him), and the sense of holy space within Islam. Pi's father
is a rationalist who is skeptical about religion, yet he is okay with Pi
adopting a belief system that he (the father) does not share, just so
long as Pi chooses one belief system rather than adhering to multiple
religions. Pi's mother was disowned by her parents for marring someone
of whom they disapproved, and Pi narrates that her devotion to Hinduism
was a way for her to remain attached to her Indian heritage. When the
mother speaks for herself in the movie, however, she says that science
is about what's "out there," whereas religion is about what's "in here"
(the heart). The main reason that I liked this movie was that it was about religious
exploration. I'm interested in stories that explore what people believe
and why, and what draws people to certain belief systems.
Pi
and his family have to leave India, and they're taking the zoo animals
with them. The ship has a serious accident, which takes the lives of
Pi's family, and the outcome is that Pi is on a little boat in the
middle of the sea, with a ferocious tiger named Richard Parker. Pi is
trying to survive with the tiger on board, and he eventually develops
compassion for the tiger and saves him from drowning. Pi finds that the
tiger is keeping him alive by making him afraid, and also by giving him
someone to care for. Pi is sad when the tiger leaves him without
looking back, or giving some indication of saying "good bye." When Pi
saved the tiger from drowning, I had some compassion for the tiger,
since the tiger reminded me of my own cats. At the same time, I said
when I was watching that scene that I would have let the tiger drown,
since the tiger was threatening Pi's life and peace of mind. My
statement was not well received by my Mom and her husband, and even one
of our cats, Figaro,
had something to say about my remark! In any case, I came to respect
Pi's relationship with the tiger, and the scene in which Pi was petting
the tiger's head while the tiger was sick was sweet (see the trailer for a snippet of that scene).
At
the end of the movie, we're left in doubt about whether Pi's story
about the tiger is true, or if instead something else happened. The
movie seemed to be going in a postmodern direction (if it hadn't
already), and my Mom is better at understanding postmodernism than I
am. I was scratching my head, wondering if the tiger story actually
happened (within the narrative of the movie, of course). But the movie
appeared to be asking which story the hearer wants to accept, the more
fantastic one, or the less fantastic one. Was the tiger story an
allegory? I don't know. While postmodern movies make me scratch my
head, at times, their postmodernism does gives the movies a certain
degree of depth, which I happen to like.