We can’t choose to believe the tiger story or the French cook story because they are both the same, although one has cuddly animals in it and makes us feel good. Choosing to believe that story is like believing in a God that does not exist. We believe it because we want to, it is easier and means we do not have to confront the grubby reality. Understandably Pi does not want to live with the grubby reality so he invents a better one.

One example. Pi has to eat fish but he can’t because he is a vegetarian. His God is stopping him from eating fish and causing him to die. Pi eats the fish anyway. Then he looks at a fish and says, “Thank you Lord Vishnu, for coming to me in the body of a fish”. Pi is pretending God is in the fish so that he can eat it and survive. It is his way of overriding God.

Pi is saying we make up nonsense so we can go on in the world. He converted his real life into a cute animal story so he could go on and have children and prosper. And so it goes with God. God is a good story we need to believe in because we prefer it to reality.

The Life of Pi is a beautiful, poetic novel and Ang Lee’s film adaptation is as close to perfect an adaptation as they come. It was truly beautiful to watch and I am unashamed to admit I wept like a little girl towards the end. It’s one of the first 3D films I’ve seen where the raw beauty of the film was enhanced by the 3D rather than the 3D being just a distraction.

As to the treatment of religion in the film, (if you’ve neither read nor seen the film stop here):

— spoiler follows ——

Pi makes the point at the end, both in the book and in the film, that the magical version of his ordeal is “the better story.” This is vindicated by the reference to the tiger in the official insurance report; the insurance people, despite insisting on a story that won’t make them look like fools would rather a magical story than one grounded in the reality of murder and cannibalism. But ultimately the story is just a story, both stories are; neither are true, and so, for the audience it makes little sense to debate which is the true story. As a member of the audience, life the insurance agents, we want to believe the more wonderful, more uplifting, more humane story, even if that story is patently nonsense.

So too with religion. Pi is both devout in his believe but at the same time perfectly happy to accept his beliefs are contradictory. His father makes the point that believing in all of Hinduism (with millions of gods) and also Christianity and Islam is just like not believing in any of them (which is his position.) It’s just not rational to believe in them all he, the rationalist, complains. But for Pi (who later in the film also admits he lectures in Kabbala as well) religion is not about what is true, it’s about what makes the better story, even if those stories are patently nonsense.

Very good to read something about the “message” of the film, esp with personal feeling (but what did your sis think?). The visuals are undeniably wonderful, and remind us what a graceful, tasteful eye Ang Lee has, from Ice Storm to the landscape sweep of Brokeback Mountain.

Couple of things: the 3D gave me a headache — maybe it’s a spectacles over spectacles thing? And I went with another agnosticish friend — the bit when the older Pi promises that his story will make you believe in God: didn’t work.

The God/religion crux — the reason for this whole story/book/film — seems to me very weak. All that stunningly rendered “beauty” palls against the idea of a personal god who would kill my family in a blink, a whole ship of innocent animals and then put me into a lethal situation of dehydration, starvation and being eaten alive, for 200+ days. God’s little experiment: place a pious boy between a hell tiger and heavenly dazzlements.

No one has ever explained the Old Testament episode of God requiring Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Neither Martel nor Lee have managed to satisfy a non-believer’s requirement for sense, if not sensitivity, from the deity/deities.

regarding your final remark, I’m sure Ang Lee does want us to see the film as an exploration of faith — from The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman on, it is clear that he is interested in cultural ideas, in trying to reach some understanding of human feeling. Entertainment is evidently not the whole thing for him.

But the problem with Pi, the film and the character, is exactly the consuming desire for a connection with god; in the famous X-files phrase: “I Want to Believe.” One issue is that there is no uncertainty in the film as we know Pi comes through his ordeal, limbs intact, at the start.

As for doubt, another problem is that Pi’s belief is glued tight early, from his childhood project of collecting gods and divine superheroes. “What more do you want from me?” Pi cries out at one point, not too late, but maybe too little. What saves Pi, and the film, is the absorbing mechanics of survival. To quell Pi’s and the audience’s doubt and anxiety, god/director hurls gorgeous visions at us.

As if centuries of murderous conflict between “faiths” did not count, were not suitable for discussion. As if the (Hindu-Muslim) Partition in India never happened. As if Spirituality were an intoxicating fragrance we could all wear; it comes in such ravishing packaging…

Regards,
chong