Review of Life of Pi (2012) by Andrea N — 11 Mar 2014

This is a visually stunning movie, featuring a computer-graphics tiger that, most of the time, appears to be completely real. Maybe some scenes did use a real tiger; I simply can't tell.

The plot involves a young east Indian man name Pi (short for Piscine, a name suggested by his swimming pool-obsessed uncle) who is the sole human survivor of a shipwreck while his zoo-owning family was emigrating to Canada with their animals. It turns out that Pi must share his lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Paker. It is never entirely clear whether we are witnessing what Pi remembers (he is telling his story to a writer who wants to document his tale) or hallucinations he experienced while lost at sea and delirious: there are scenes where the lifeboat appears to be floating in a star-filled sky; a strange floating island made of tree roots and populated with meerkats appears late in the film and is certainly unreal.

The imagery and symbolism are intended to say something about God and why we should believe stories of the miraculous and the amazing. Although the film doesn't entirely succeed in its ambitions, it is a spectacular attempt.