Monday, December 03, 2012
Life of Pi
Life of Pi 12/1/12
Warched the movie Life of Pi yesterday. I had a lot of expectations from having watched the trailer of the movie a number of times during prior movie outings. The vivid images of the a young boy getting shocked by a zebra trying to swim and escape frim te deck of a ship and his tryst with a ferocious tiger in a lone boat , the amazing way the mere cats run frantically in a group in the island and the beautifully cast Indian temple with fliating diyaa lights were part of the trailer which enthused me to go and watch the movie in the theatre. The opening of the movie also was stunning as it started as if it was a tamil movie with a Traditional tamil song set in Pondicherry. This was followed by the introduction of a host of characters who too were Indians. Just as I imagined this to be another "Namesake" kind of movie I was confronted with surprise and shock The indianness of the movie just stopped right there and suddenly the movie got hijacked into this castaway mode.
As the movie evolved I found that the awe inspiring trailer elements were the only most interesting moments in the whole movie as well. May be a couple of more scenes such as the moments that Pi spends with the tiger, the flying fishes in the middle of the ocean and the amazing colorful scenes in the floating island.But other than these scenes I dont have much anecdotal scenes or interesting moments to remember just a day after watching the movie. May be my expectations of ship wrecked and survival kind of movies comes from the movie cast away which had many elements such as the fedex box and the soccer ball wilson which are still now etched in my minds after a decade from watching that movie.Having said that, Life of Pi was still a very well made movie which just did not live much to the hype.I wish there were more juicy elements added to it when Pi is stranded in the middle of the sea or when he gets to alight on the floating island. The relationship of Pi and his attachment to the tiger could have been Made a bit more poignant. The tiger was throughout shown to be a ruthless emotionless creature that kept growling and trying to pounce on Pi. May be it should have been shown to be tamed and much docile as it understands Pi's concern for keeping it alive through his efforts to find fishes or provide shelter from the raving waves in the boat.
The director might have tried to stick to the original story from the book that this movie has been adapted but if he had the liberty to introduce changes to the script I think he could have shown the elderly Pi getting back to where he finally reached land and reuniting with the tiger or Pi going back to India looking for his lady love Aanandhi and probably even recreating a zoo as how his father had done earlier. May be Indian cinema has spoilt me with such happy endings but then the way Life of Pi ended seemed so abrupt and pointless. I didnt understand what the purpose of the whole narration from Irfan Khan was for. What was the connection of Pi and the bharatnatyam sessions and his love scenes? The bit about God, the church visits and Pi's ridicule at school for his crazy name were also a bit confusing and not gelling with the purpose of the movie.I feel Tabu and Irfan Khan had been wasted in the movie. They are brilliant actors who could have been made memorable role players in the movie rather than act like some stage drama charaters just mouthing out lengthy dialogues.Tabu's tamil pronunciation in the few scenes she came were attrocious.Finally what is the message from the movie? May be it is not meant to have any message but it tried to dabble across many issues such as religion, vegetarianism, cruelty to animals from being in captivity at zoos/when they get transported across the world and also about the lack of compassion and common sense in wild animals. There was also this half baked attempt at saying that one can survive in a lone boat with a wild animal if one acts shrewd and doesnt lose hope.
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Posted by rajesh | 
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