Review of Life of Pi (2012) by Alex Bonafide A — 24 Sep 2013

This is a very interesting movie... thought provoking, philosophical, and, of course, spiritual. People who claim it's boring (talking about you Dillon Mack) treat this as simply a movie and miss the idea of how Pi wants his story, and thus how we should interact with it, to be seen: Pi survived only because of God.

The filming of the "insane" was done beautifully-- it's hard to make what feels like an acid trip at sea come to life with animals in your boat, epic sea storms, exotic fish, etc. The CGI was used well and appropriately for the movie's content. And where CGI was not used to film Ang Lee's ideas, the way everything was composed was also well done. As this movie is a flashback with Pi recounting his story to a reporter, there is some back-an-forth cutting from then to the present at the beginning, which is annoying at times, but soon fades to the bulk of Pi's journey. The interviewer himself thankfully was not shown on screen for most of the movie, because I could never figure out what emotion he was feeling. I was confused if he was sincere or sarcastic or just aloof in his comments or when the camera cut to his face-- just poor emotional acting. As for the spirituality in this film, it interestingly tries to blend the idea of one overall God that introduces Himself through the deities of other religions (i.e. Krishna, Allah, Jesus, etc.). While that is certainly a great way to compromise, create common ground, and answer the problem of the diversity of "true" religion, it blatantly ignores the differences of the goals and perceptions of wholeness for each religion. If Pi's assertion that God is introduced by these other deities is correct, then God is a very confusing and contradicting God-- not one that can be understood in human capacity or trusted on any level.

Life of Pi... watch it, and engage with the it on the spiritual level it deserves.