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Andy Lee’s “Life of Pi”, is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and animated magic realism. Inspired by Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, it is a visual masterpiece that encapsulates the human ability to overcome hardship through faith and resilience. Audiences feel like active participants in the plot through powerful cinematic techniques and rich motifs. Life of Pi is a story about survival against seemingly insurmountable odds. Protagonist Pi is placed in a life-or-death situation, which tests his faith and morality. For 227 days, he is stranded on a liferaft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, accompanied by an adult tiger named Richard Parker. On his journey, he faces starvation, brutal storms, shark-filled waters, and insanity. At the end of the film, Pi tells a much darker and disturbing variation of events. Where the animals are substituted for real people and Richard Parker is a physical projection of the savage and ruthless persona Pi had to adopt to stay alive.
Life of Pi isn’t a story of human suffering but one of human perseverance. A testament of inner strength and how spirituality is a vital part of humanity. Religion and faith are complex human experiences that answer our existential questions and give a set of moral guidelines and purpose for life. Lee's strategic employment of sound, camera angles, lighting, and non-diegetic sound, highlights the impact of religion on Pi and how it kept him alive. Like religion, Life of Pi requires the suspension of disbelief, yet it asks us to both believe, and question, that which we can’t understand.
Throughout the film, music and sound are used to characterize Pi, his home, his family, and the arc of the story. Traditional Indian music is incorporated in the opening to add dimension as Lee introduces Pi’s hometown and his Hinduism. Audiences are given insight into character development and how he became the curious polytheistic teenager whom we follow for the entirety of the film. Contrastingly, in scenes where Pi is stranded in the ocean, Lee chooses to leave it silent, setting an angelic yet eerie aura. This paired with long shots of the sky mirrored on the motionless water, makes it look like Pi is floating in heaven, paying homage to his strong faith and God’s intervention in his journey.
The most significant scene where Pi’s spirituality is animated is of the big storm, pathetic fallacy is integrated into the storyline to compare Pi’s fading hope/ faith with this natural chaos. The close-up camera angles on Pi’s face focus the viewer’s attention on his emotions. The sounds of the harps and wind instruments are major assistants in conveying the dramatic aura. Additionally, a dark color scheme is created through Pi’s dull clothes, the dark ocean, and the sky. All this builds to a climax where Pi is overcome by challenges both physically through the natural chaos around him and his internal struggle to stay faithful.
Pi’s resilience can also be credited to his perceived reality, which he constructs himself as a coping mechanism. He substitutes real people on the boat for animals and his cold-blooded behavior into the manifestation of the tiger This indicates that humans shun their level of morality in the quest of being satisfied with their own beliefs. The flawed side of humanity is shown through the disbelief that the two inspectors show toward Pi when he narrates his story to them. This disbelief shows the nature of humans, who judge others and only choose to believe that part of the story that satisfies their logic and reasoning; while ignoring the other parts that are necessary to create the real picture.
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