Life Of Pi

Life of Pi is most famous for the CGI tiger of the second act, but the entire first act of Ang Lee's film was shot on location in the coastal town of Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry), where the.

The Will to Live

Life of Pi is a story about strugglingto survive through seemingly insurmountable odds. The shipwreckedinhabitants of the little lifeboat don’t simply acquiesce to theirfate: they actively fight against it. Pi abandons his lifelong vegetarianismand eats fish to sustain himself. Orange Juice, the peaceful orangutan,fights ferociously against the hyena. Even the severely woundedzebra battles to stay alive; his slow, painful struggle vividlyillustrates the sheer strength of his life force. As Martel makesclear in his novel, living creatures will often do extraordinary,unexpected, and sometimes heroic things to survive. However, theywill also do shameful and barbaric things if pressed. The hyena’streachery and the blind Frenchman’s turn toward cannibalism showjust how far creatures will go when faced with the possibility ofextinction. At the end of the novel, when Pi raises the possibilitythat the fierce tiger, Richard Parker, is actually an aspect ofhis own personality, and that Pi himself is responsible for someof the horrific events he has narrated, the reader is forced todecide just what kinds of actions are acceptable in a life-or-deathsituation.

The Importance of Storytelling

Life of Pi is a story within a storywithin a story. The novel is framed by a (fictional) note from theauthor, Yann Martel, who describes how he first came to hear thefantastic tale of Piscine Molitor Patel. Within the framework ofMartel’s narration is Pi’s fantastical first-person account of lifeon the open sea, which forms the bulk of the book. At the end ofthe novel, a transcript taken from an interrogation of Pi revealsthe possible “true” story within that story: that therewere no animals at all, and that Pi had spent those 227 days withother human survivors who all eventually perished, leaving onlyhimself.

Pi, however, is not a liar: to him, the various versionsof his story each contain a different kind of truth. One versionmay be factually true, but the other has an emotional or thematictruth that the other cannot approach. Throughout the novel, Pi expressesdisdain for rationalists who only put their faith in “dry, yeastlessfactuality,” when stories—which can amaze and inspire listeners,and are bound to linger longer in the imagination—are, to him, infinitelysuperior.

Storytelling is also a means of survival. The “true” eventsof Pi’s sea voyage are too horrible to contemplate directly: anyyoung boy would go insane if faced with the kinds of acts Pi (indirectly)tells his integrators he has witnessed. By recasting his accountas an incredible tale about humanlike animals, Pi doesn’t have toface the true cruelty human beings are actually capable of. Similarly,by creating the character of Richard Parker, Pi can disavow theferocious, violent side of his personality that allowed him to surviveon the ocean. Even this is not, technically, a lie in Pi’s eyes.He believes that the tiger-like aspect of his nature and the civilized,human aspect stand in tense opposition and occasional partnershipwith one another, just as the boy Pi and the tiger Richard Parkerare both enemies and allies.

The Nature of Religious Belief

Life of Pi begins with an old man inPondicherry who tells the narrator, “I have a story that will makeyou believe in God.” Storytelling and religious belief are two closelylinked ideas in the novel. On a literal level, each of Pi’s threereligions, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, come with its ownset of tales and fables, which are used to spread the teachingsand illustrate the beliefs of the faith. Pi enjoys the wealth ofstories, but he also senses that, as Father Martin assured him wastrue of Christianity, each of these stories might simply be aspectsof a greater, universal story about love.

Stories and religious beliefs are also linked in Lifeof Pi because Pi asserts that both require faith on thepart of the listener or devotee. Surprisingly for such a religiousboy, Pi admires atheists. To him, the important thing is to believein something, and Pi can appreciate an atheist’sability to believe in the absence of God with no concrete proofof that absence. Pi has nothing but disdain, however, for agnostics,who claim that it is impossible to know either way, and who thereforerefrain from making a definitive statement on the question of God.Pi sees this as evidence of a shameful lack of imagination. To him,agnostics who cannot make a leap of faith in either direction arelike listeners who cannot appreciate the non-literal truth a fictionalstory might provide.

1 EXT. PONDICHERRY ZOO, INDIA, 1961 - DAY 1

CREDITS OVER:
a magicalfairy tale world in collage - images

of fantasticcreaturesstriped and spotted, hoofed and

horned.

Goats and warthogsmingle in an open field; a baby giraffe

tries to reachleaves over a fence; rhinos roll happily in

rich red mud, looking like giantmuddy boulders, while

nearby, black and whiteMalayantapirs cool themselves in

watering holes.

Exotic monkeys with comicalfacesclinglovingly to one

another, swing from trees, climb over one another, prance and

screech; a probiscusmonkey with a 'Jimmy Durante' nose

pointing out through the plane of the screen. Flamingoes

strut about in the aviary, their pink feathersreflected in

the water.

A slothdroopslazily from a tree branch, unfazed, while a

nearby hummingbird zips manically from flower to flower like

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Tinkerbell..

.. the Pondicherry zoo is a children's paradisenestled in a

botanical garden.

WRITER (V.O.)

You were raised in a zoo?

3 EXT. PONDICHERRY ZOO, INDIA, 1961 - DAY 3

There's a flurry of activity in the animalclinicbehind a

monitor lizard that wanders the main path. ZOOWORKERS gather

in the doorway, talking excitedly.

No one notices the lizard.

ADULT PI (V.O.)

Born and raised in Pondicherry, in

what was the French part of India.

My fatherowned the zoo, and I was

delivered on shortnotice by a

herpetologist who was there to

check on the BengalMonitor Lizard.

The zoo owner (FATHER - late 20s) hurries down the path as

quickly as his heavy leg brace will allow and hurries into

the animal clinic.

2.

ADULT PI (V.O.)

Mother and I were both healthy..

The lizardcrawls away.

ADULT PI (V.O.)

but the poor lizardescaped and was

trampled by a frightened

cassowary..

5 INT. PI'S HOME, KITCHEN, MONTREAL - DAY 5

A modest row house. There is a Frenchinfluence to the decor,

along with books and artwork that celebrate the spiritual.

PI PATEL (50 - intelligent, Indo-Canadian) cooks an Indian

meal. The often-skeptical WRITER (late 30s, a disheveled

French Canadian), watches Pi.

ADULT PI:

The way of karma; the way of God.

WRITER:

I assumed your father was a

mathematician - because of your

name.

ADULT PI:The detailer.

Oh, far from it. I was named after

a swimming pool.

WRITER:

There's a swimming pool named 'Pi?'

ADULT PI:

(He chuckles.)

You see, my uncle, Francis, was

born with too much water in his

lungs. They say the doctor swung

Francis around by the ankles to

clear the water out and that's what

gave him the huge chest and skinny

legs that made him such a great

swimmer.

WRITER:

(Amused.)

Is Francisactually your uncle? He

said he was friends with your

father.

3.