A Bengal Tiger, a boy and God

It’s one of the best movies currently showing,” says my editor Millet Mananquil. “You have to watch Life of Pi.”

I’m not really a big film buff, a fact my editor knows very well. But there must have been something that was really good about the movie that prodded her to suggest to me that I go see it. I heard earlier from a few friends, who know how much I love animals, that the movie had a lot of them in it.

I was particularly struck by a conversation between the adult Pi Patel and the writer who was interviewing him:

Adult Pi Patel: So, which story do you prefer?

Writer: The one with the tiger. That’s the better story.

Adult Pi Patel: Thank you. And so it goes with God.

Writer: (smiles) It’s an amazing story.

I had been as much taken by the relationship that developed between Pi and the Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. It is that aspect that pulled me into the movie and made me see just how beautiful the relationship between an animal (whether domesticated or not) and a human can be. If we learn to accept each other’s terms, that is.  

Life of Pi is about an Indian boy (Pi) and a Bengal tiger (Richard Parker) who get trapped in a lifeboat in uncharted Pacific waters, after the boat they were in sinks. The two end up as the last survivors after the other animals (Hyena, Zebra and Orangutan) are killed off because of the need to survive.

What is interesting is how Pi is able to overcome a boy vs. beast battle for territory and survival.

The movie Life of Pi is based on the book by Yann Martel, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002.

The movie starts with a small bear hugging a tree as a hummingbird fluttering above it â€” and seemingly flies through the movie house.  It goes through a whole gamut of animals in the zoo that Pi’s father owns.

Everything is visually amazing in Life of Pi. The dangerous animals look amazing. The terrible storms look amazing. The crashing ocean waves, the twinkling stars, the wondrous carnivorous island on which the hero at one point lands — they are truly amazing.

As anyone who has read the book knows, the hero’s full name is Piscine Molitor Patel. His father owned a zoo and the whole family is emigrating (with all the animals) on a ship to Canada when disaster hits.

As an adult, Pi recalls the events of the shipwreck in  story that will capture the imagination of moviegoers. 

As he tells his story, the interesting part, at least for me begins when he introduces Richard Parker. It is there where my attention was captured.

This is where I really tune in, because the story is really about a boy and a tiger in a boat for a long time. It goes into the magical and transformative things that happen throughout the boy’s ordeal. And about how the boy thinks about God while he’s on that boat, surrounded by endless water. (Raised a Hindu, Pi also embraces Christianity and Islam).

The story does stay with you.

But, I was also in awe of how the director, Ang Lee, was able to make Richard Parker so lifelike in this 3-D project . How did he make the stars so twinkly; the storms at the see so rough; the wonders under the sea so fantastic?

As I pondered about it long after it was over, I realized is that the movie was more than about faith in God and survival. It was about how one’s imagination can work — when one’s faith is pushed to the limits.

I laughed out loud when Pi had to kill a fish so that he could feed the carnivore Richard Parker.

“Pi Patel: Thank you Lord Vishnu. Thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives.”

And then, how a movie can bring all the thoughts that run through one’s mind into such true and visual reality so that it goes beyond capturing one’s imagination — but it tugs at the very heart of who we are and what we can be — in God’s time.

Adult Pi Patel: Faith is a house with many rooms.

Writer: But no room for doubt?

Adult Pi Patel: Oh plenty, on every floor. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested.