Movie: Life of Pi

I knew the book for years now, I had never read it but I knew of its existence, for some inexplicable reason it never really appealed to me. Honestly though I had no idea what the story about and some part of me had always thought it was about some mathematics genius and I don't know how it happened but on the version of the book cover I knew I had never really noticed the ship, tiger and fishes. Somehow in my mind it had settled itself as a blue cover with math signs on it. Boy was I wrong! I still haven't read the books but it's on my to read list now so I'll get there at some point. As one of my reading resolutions of this year is to read a bit more adult fiction (not counting the ones I read for my research), I should give it a go this year. The movie seemed like one of those one has to see so off to the movies I went with my friend.

Yay!

• The stunning visuals, it's a long movie but you never get bored due to the wonderful cinematography. Be it India or the wide open sea, a tropical island or hallucinations, there's never a boring visual moment in this movie.
• The acting skills of young Pi Patel, Suraj Sharma. I love that they chose an unknown actor for this part, it gives the main character that innocence it needs and not somebody who maybe tries to overdo it.
• The fact that the tiger was CGI most of the time because really in this day and age we don't need real animals anymore, also it was amazing CGI because Richard Parker looked amazingly real. Although I would have liked to see a 100% use of CGI.
• The way Pi embraces all religions, I'm not religious but I liked the way it was dealt with in this movie.
• The main thematic of the movie, when somebody tells us a story, can we ever completely believe it? And what is actually reality and what is fantasy?
• Man's relationship with the forces of nature and how helpless we can be in the light of some things juxtaposed to the fact that Richard Parker and Pi have to find a way to survive the wild open sea.
• The hopelessness and desolation coming across the screen, the movie in some way feels a bit claustrophobic but it's beautiful to see how Pi never seems to completely lose hope.

Nay...

• I keep thinking that the theme of which story is true lends itself better to a book, thinking of the question how reliable a narrator is or can be. It was however wonderfully done in this movie and I can only really judge this when I read the book.
• They could have used only CGI for the tiger.

All in All

I really liked this movie and I went in not knowing a lot about it which was probably a good thing because I could just let it all wash over me. It's a long movie but you won't be bored for a second. There's nothing really bad I can say about this movie so if you want to see a stunning movie that has amazing visuals and tells a wonderful story satisfying your mind and eyes, you should definitely watch this.

4 stars