Which is the Better Story: Review of The Life of Pi

Review of The Life of Pi

Brenda Liddy © 2012

I was really looking forward to seeing The Life of Pi, the latest offering from one of the world’s most famous contemporary directors, Ang Lee, (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Sense and Sensibility.

 Surai Sharma played Pi, Irrfan Khan played the adult Pi, and Rafe Spall played the writer.

 The film was about a young castaway Pi, who survived 227 days on the ocean in a boat with a fierce Bengal tiger but it was also about storytelling itself. The story with its theme of a solitary man against the forces of nature is reminiscent of Hemmingway’s The Old Man of the Sea and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The story’s postcolonial setting links it to the post independent novels of   Salmam Rushdie. Its magical realist elements connect it to Gabriel García Márquez, the famous Colombian novelist.

In the opening scene there is a giraffe chewing leaves, and flamingos strolling about the Zoo in Pondicherry.  Can anything interrupt this animal and avian heaven? Soon things change quickly when Pi’s father informs the family that they are moving to Canada, but not before Pi has stood up to the school bullies by asserting the mathematical prowess of his name. Pi or π he assures them is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and is approximately 3.14. Like the colour orange, it is an important symbol in the film because it represents irrationality and transcendence. He is also taught an important lesson by his father who demonstrates that the tiger, Richard Parker is not a friend after we witness the latter killing a little female kid goat in five seconds. His final preparation as a castaway would not be complete without his swimming lessons from his honorary uncle, Francis Adirubasamy. Who incidentally suggested he be named after his favourite swimming pool, the Piscine Molitor, a Parisian swimming club that he adored. Of course no hero’s spiritual journey would be complete without his spiritual training and in the film we are taken through his introduction to Vishnu, Jesus and Mohammed, via the pandit, priest and imam.

The cargo ship in which the family and the animals travel to Canada is called the Tsumtsim. The name Tsumtsim means, as defined by kabbalistic philosophy is the space or contraction. Their belief as formulated by Luria proposes that in order to create the universe, God had to vacate a part of himself. After the accident which is moment of high drama, the orphaned Pi’s life is suddenly reduced to a lifeboat, a raft and three animals, a zebra, a hyena and a tiger. As the animals struggle for mastery of the boat, the drama intensifies. Ultimately, Richard Parker and Pi survive and what follows is a cat and mouse game to see who gets the upper hand.  

In the film, Pi tries to and succeeds in training the tiger to honour each other’s respective territory in the boat. He provides food and water for Richard Parker and in a way gives him a reason to live. He controls the tiger by means of a whistle and sets up a feeding schedule for him.  In a way the tiger taming is a metaphor for the way we all need to establish healthy boundaries in our lives and how we need to live by a series of rituals. This ensures Pi’s survival. Just as he marks out the days on the side of the boat, so too does he create a daily routine for looking after the tiger. In the film, we see Pi conducting his activities from the raft he has assembled, while the tiger seems ultimately to play along in order to survive. Both of them have been thrown out into a cruel world, with no prospect of being rescued.  Prior to being cast out on the merciless ocean they both lived in a zoo, and never had to fend for themselves.  A schoolboy who was bored with facts, fractions and French now has to become Robinson Crusoe and a well fed tiger, who has recently dined on kid goats, has now to live in the confined space of a life boat and be looked after by a young boy.

As time progresses Pi learns the lesson that hunger can change everything you thought you knew about yourself. After a few dramatic scenes of flying fish, and a tanker sailing past them, a terrible storm arises. Pi cries out, ‘I surrender, what more do you want?’  After the floating island with the thousands of meerkats scurrying around, Pi comes to the conclusion that he needs to set sail again as the island will eventually destroy him. At the end of the Pacific Ocean episode, Pi has morphed into a philosopher as he declares, ‘Life is an act of letting go.’ When the boat is washed up on the coast of Mexico, Richard just walks off into the forest. Pi is devastated because this is an unceremonious parting of the ways, after all they had been through.

Two Japanese men from the shipping company come to interview Pi. He tells them the story of his adventure on the lifeboat with the Bengal tiger. They are incredulous, especially when he tells them about Orange Juice, the orang-utan who came floating towards him on a bunch of bananas. ‘But bananas don’t float,’ one of them comments. They want a better story for their report. Pi provides one full of ‘yeastless factuality,’ where he was the tiger, the mother was the orang-utan, the Happy Buddhist was the zebra, and the hyena was the cook. They look on, horrified. Pi says, 'so tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?'

Mr. Okamoto states, 'That's an interesting question.’

Mr. Chiba says, 'The story with animals.'
Mr. Okamoto comments, ‘Yes. The story with animals is the better story.'
And Pi declares, 'Thank you. And so it goes with God.'
If the listener of Pi’s tale does not believe in God by the end of the story, the viewer will certainly.