Life of Pi
This blog is in response to the task of the movie review writing of Life of Pi assigned by Yesha ma'am, Department of English, MKBU.
Introduction:-
Life of Pi is a 2012 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ang Lee and written by David Magee. It is Based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name. The storyline revolves around two survivors of a shipwreck. One is a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Pi Patel. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger which raises questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.
The main message in "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is that life can and will be difficult. However, people must persevere by any means necessary. Being adaptive and having faith in yourself and a higher power can help a person achieve any obstacle in their path.
The Movie cast:-
- Pi Patel - Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan and Gautam Belur, Ayush Tandon
- Write - Rafe Spall
- Gita patel - Tabu
- Ravi Patel - Vibish Sivakumar, Aryan Khan
- Santosh Patel - Adil Hussain
Significance of Tiger:-
Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger that symbolizes God or faith through love and fear, and also survival. He symbolizes being an imaginary friend as well. However, it can also be argued that Richard Parker symbolizes that he and Pi are one in the same.
Significance of the Name 'Pi':-
The name of Pi has significance within it. In the beginning during discussion of the name of Pi Patel, Pi Patel reveals the secret behind his name. In Paris, there is a pool named Piscine Molitor, which has very clean water. Uncle of Pi Patel, whom Pi Patel calls Mamaji , is a great swimmer. One day Mamaji said pi's Father is that "Of all the pools in the world the most beautiful is a public pool in Paris." Before the birth of Pi, Mamaji said to his father that "If you want your son to have a clean soul, you must take him to swim in Piscine Molitor." His father took it too seriously and named him Piscine Molitor Patel. But this name Piscine becomes problematic for him as his classmates address him as 'Pissing'. But later on he himself chooses his name as Pi, π which is a concept of maths and lets others know about the significance of his name also.
Difference between Spirituality and Religion and Significance of doubt in it:-
The question of the difference between Spirituality and Religion is quite disputable, but there is a more accurate line between them. This thin but accurate line of both is well presented through the Movie Life of Pi. The initial part, during the conversation between Pi Patel and the writer, Pi Patel talks about it. All These dialogues spoken by Pi Patel is very much important to consider both the points in an appropriate way. Though I have put some of them for better understanding of both the concepts. First he Says Hindus, Catholic Hindus. While describing the concept of religion, he says,
None of us know God until someone introduces us. I was first introduced to God as a Hindu.
I met Krishna first.
These two lines depict a lot. This shows that religion is something which is taught to us by others. While spirituality is the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. And here, in the beginning we get a glimpse of religion and spirituality going parallel. He further says,
We get to feel guilty before hundreds of gods instead of just one.
After the story hears from her mother, at night Pi opens the book of Krishna and while watching the photo from the book of when Yashoda sees the whole universe in Krishna's mouth Pi also imagines the same. In between the lines of his father Santosh Patel is very much important he says,
Spectacle, don't let these stories. It is made to fool you boys. Religion is darkness.
His father believed him as a part of new India. In his childhood he had polio, he used to lie in bed with pain, wandering where God was. In the end god didn't save him, Western medicine did. So these sentences lead us to take us away from blind faith in God. In the Modern world, in the 21st century, people are having blind faith in God. In any religion, Faith is good but blind faith is always disastrous.
After that He says a few things about it.
I met Christ in the mountains when I was 12". Here his brother Ravi put a bet in front of Pi to drink holy water from the church. While doing so, Pi is kept by the priest. While having water from the priest, Pi asks some questions to the priest that "why would I do that? why would he send his own son to suffer for the scenes of ordinary people?"
Priest replies because he loves us, God had made him so approachable to us humans so we couldn't understand him. We can't understand God and old his perfections but we can understand God's Sun and his suffering as we would brothers. According to Pi Patel "that made no sense sacrificing the innocent for the sake of the guilt, what kind of love is that?
Now little Pi becomes so curious to know about Christ, he comes and asks the priest "If god is so perfect and we are not what he wanted to create all this why does he need us? " But he could not get what he wanted. No again he is going to Vishnu and telling thank you Vishnu for introducing me with Christ. He admits that,
"I came to feed through Hinduism and I found God's love through Christ but God wasn't finished with me yet. God Works in a mysterious way so he introduced himself again, this time by the name of Allah."
Now he is following all three religions at once Hinduism Christianity and Islamism. Once at the dinner his Father says that you are all missing out. You only need to convert 3 more religions to Piscine and you will spend your life on holidays." His father says to him that you cannot follow three different religions at the same time. believing in everything at the same time is the same as not believing in anything." His father advises him that instead of going from one religion to another he has to start with reason. It is always amiable to think rationally rather than having blind faith. According to Pi Patel,
"Faith is a house with many rooms. There are many rooms for doubts. and doubts are useful. It keeps faith in living things. You don't know strength until it has been tested."
By these dialogues we can understand the concept of religion. We can connect the situation of Little Pi with PK. He is also like a little child, who is one by one being introduced to various gods and goddesses. He is roaming around all the religions to find a way. At the end he gets nothing out of it. The concept of the movie Oh My God is more appropriate to the mindset of Santosh Patel - Father of Pi. Now this is Religious aspect and a quest for it. The Aspect of Spirituality and what a little Pi wanted to search has been found in the middle and at the end of the movie.
After the shipwreck, Pi loses his family and now he is on the lifeboat with Richard Parker - the Tiger. Earlier he wanted to reflect that animal have souls by his eyes. He says to god, "God I give myself to you, I am your vessel. Where it comes I don't know, show me." There is one line, "Above all don't lose hope". This little sentence means a lot to deal with hard situation.
After some days when food has been over, a vegetarian Pi becomes non vegetarian to survive. Now there is only one option to survive and that is to have seafood. When Pi for the first time hunts a fish, he thanks lord Vishnu to come in a form of Fish to save him. Faith works like this. It gives you a ray to survive.
Hunger can change everything you know about yourself.
If we are going to live together, We have to learn to communicate. May by Richard Parker can't be tamed but with God's will, he can be trained.
Now he trains the Tiger and the faith to do it comes from the faith in God.
The concept of the Island is very similar to human life. God gives us life but also takes it back like that Island.
At the end, Richard Parker left him. I have emphatically chosen these lines from the movie to give better understanding of the Concept of religion and spirituality. The concept of religion is a way of life, not only to have blind faith and in this direction both the religion and spirituality have the same ideologies. But we humans have differentiated religions and make people different from each other.
Significance of Island:-
Like many other aspects in Life of Pi, the algae island is a paradoxical symbol of both salvation and temptation. Its very existence tests Pi's faith. At first the island tempts Pi with an easy life, allowing him to stray from his journey. Pi thinks that he has been saved.
Pi discovers that the island is carnivorous. He discovers that by night, the algae leaches a deadly acid that kills the fish in the pools where they are dissolved and ingested by the plants. The meerkats thus take to the trees at night, trees that too are carnivorous, but slowly, slow enough not to ingest something still living, only the dead. Pi realizes that the teeth represent some fellow castaway who found the same rest on the island. Pi realizes this castaway must have died in the tree and he wonders how long it takes, “for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water, and shelter?” Pi resolves to leave, to return to the sea and “perish in search of my own kind that to live a lonely half life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island.”
Pi’s humanity re emerges on the Island. It is human to search for spiritual fulfillment, but only after physical needs are met. The Island meets all of Pi’s physical needs, but it does nothing for his soul. He breaks all bonds of animalistic reason and leaves.
The concept of the Island is very similar to human life. God gives us life but also takes it back like that Island.
The end of the novel is also very much important to find the mentality of people. People don't want the truth. They want what others like. The true story of Pi Patel is considered as something weird; they force Pi to accept the story woven by them. So Pi tells the writer which story he wants to prefer for further writing.
The narrative pattern also has deeper significance to expose the journey of Spiritual quest by box within box story.
Here is glimpse of the movie screening,
To conclude...
The movie Life of Pi is not a journey of Pi Patel but it is a journey of a man, especially in terms of searching for identity among religion and spirituality. It depicts a journey to survive in the wild world. As per my understanding I am relating it to the modern world, where we have to make communication better to deal with the world.
Thank you for visiting...
(Words:- 1961)
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