February 14 - Life of Pi

Today’s movie is a drama with a scene that happens on February 14. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

LIFE OF PI         

Yann Martel, a Canadian novelist interviews Pi Patel about his life. Pi tells his story. He was born in Pondicherry, India where his parents ran the zoo. Pi was named for a French swimming pool. His mother Gita introduces him to Hinduism, but Pi later is exposed to both Christianity and Islam, while his father Santosh is a rationalist. The zoo buys a tiger that is named ‘Richard Parker’ due to a bureaucratic error. Pi meets a girl Anandi, but due to business reverses, the family has to move to Canada, taking the zoo animals with them. The ship sinks in a storm and Pi ends up in a lifeboat with an injured zebra and a hyena. An orangutan climbs aboard. The hyena kills the zebra and the orangutan. Then Richard Parker emerges from under the tarp and kills the hyena and tries to kill Pi. Pi makes a raft out of the life vest and ring, as well as two paddles and lets Richard Parker have the raft.  When Richard Parker jumps off to hunt fish, Pi briefly retakes the raft, but ultimately lets the tiger have it back. Pi fishes to feed Richard Parker, but after a humpback whale upsets his raft and Pi loses most of his supplies, Pi has to eat fish also. Pi finally trains Richard Parker to tolerate is presence in the raft. They reach an island that has edible plants, where both Pi and Richard Parker regain their strength. However the island turns out to be carnivorous and they have to sail on. On February 14, 1978 [1:43:36 to 1:46:05] the lifeboat washes ashore on the coast of Mexico and Richard Parker leaves.  When Pi tells his story to shipping company investigators they do not believe him. Pi tells them another story where a sailor, the cook, Pi’s mother and himself end up in the lifeboat. The cook kills the injured sailor to use him as fishing bait. The cook kills Pi’s mother before Pi kills him. Martel notes that the investigators used the version of the story with Richard Parker, which is also the version he prefers. Martel then meets Pi’s wife and children.

A very different kind of film. Beautiful cinematography with a mystical storyline. This is a film I predict either you will love it or despise it. I don’t think there’s a lot of middle ground on this one.

The date is given in the film at 1:48:25 in a report.

Producers - Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark

Director - Ang Lee

Awards – This movie won the Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score Oscars. It was also nominated for the Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Original Song Oscars at the 85^th Academy Awards.

Screenplay - David Magee

Runtime – 2 hours 7 minutes

Released – September 28, 2012

Starring –

Gautam Belur as Pi Patel, age 5

Ayush Tandon as Pi Patel, age 11/12

Suraj Sharma as Pi Patel, age 16

Irrfan Khan as Pi Patel, adult

Rafe Spall as Yann Martel

Tabu  as Gita Patel

Adil Hussain as Santosh Patel

Ayan Khan as Ravi Patel, age 7

Mohamed Abbas Khaleeli as Ravi Patel, age 13/14

Vibish Sivakumar as Ravi Patel, age 18/19

Gérard Depardieu as the Cook

Po-Chieh Wang as the Sailor

Shravanthi Sainath as Anandi

Andrea Di Stefano as the Priest

Elie Alouf as Francis "Mamaji" Patel

Copyright 2014 by Ivan Walters