Life of Pi in 3D

This movie, based on the novel by Yann Martel, asks existential questions without being overbearing or philosophical.  It is an amazing tale, told with heart and head by director Ang Lee.  The basic story is one of shipwreck and survival -- a story told many times and in different cultures.  This film gives away the fact of Pi's survival in its opening scenes, so that is not the dramatic tension in the story.  Instead, the film asks us to care about how Pi survives, and what he discovers along the way.

For most of the film, there is a tiger named Richard Parker cast overboard with Pi -- a fellow survivor with whom he must come to terms.  Pi's life is defined against this tiger's.  Pi shares a kinship with the animal but also must confront the reality of a carnivorous predator in a confined space.  Pi spends most of his time off of the lifeboat, in fact, because the tiger claims the space inside the boat.  In this perilous situation, Pi encounters the Pacific ocean's power, beauty, and enormous scale.  Sea swells that dwarf the boat and doldrums that keep the boat adrift virtually without moving, along with the vast variety of life in the ocean, constantly pose new challenges to Pi and Richard Parker, and Pi comes to credit his survival to the fact that Richard Parker kept his instincts sharp and his mind alert.  The tiger is an incredible part of the story, and the computer animation and film techniques used to make this tiger seem real were completely convincing to me.  It's not hard to imagine that the tiger really is on the lifeboat, given how real he looks.

Did I mention that Pi is Indian, and that he incorporates three different religious traditions -- Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam -- into his story?  He comes to terms with the nature of God through his survival story, and that is part of the mystery and truth of the story -- God in the form of the mighty Pacific, the life in the Pacific, and in the form of Richard Parker.  God in the form of life and death, the fierce lover of the soul and the meek, humble God who grants grace, the provider of life-giving sustenance and the one who ultimately takes that provision away.  He also encounters the indifference of nature and its capacity to preserve life.

We saw it in 3D, which enhances the story in subtle ways.  Pi's life, after all, deserves to be seen in three dimensions, and it is sometimes worth the $3.50 extra to have a more engrossing experience.  Overall, I'd give the film four stars, but I won't say I was giving it a standing ovation at the end -- it is a rare film, a great film, one that deserves to be celebrated, but not quite life-changing.