Movies Maniac: Life of Pi

In movie theater: 21 November 2012

Story Line:

Upon release, Life of Pi became a critical and commercial success and has earned eleven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Visual Effects, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture – Drama and Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

Director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) creates an all-audience film about a young man on a fateful voyage who, after a spectacular disaster in the middle of the ocean, is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. He becomes marooned on a lifeboat he must share with the ship’s only other survivor, a fearsome Bengal tiger with whom he makes an amazing and unexpected connection.

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After weeks longer at sea, finally the boat containing Pi and Richard Parker (Bengal tiger) reaches the of Mexico . Richard Parker leaves Pi all alone and go through a deep jungle since he is too weak to follow. Eventually , He is rescued by a group who carry him to hospital.

In hospital, insurance agents for the Japanese freighter come to hear his account of the incident. They find his story unbelievable, and ask him to tell them what "really" happened, if only for the credibility of their report. He answers with a less fantastic but detailed account of sharing the lifeboat with his mother, a sailor with a broken leg, and the cook. In this story, the cook kills the sailor to use him as bait and food. In a later struggle, Pi's mother pushes him to safety on a smaller raft, and the cook stabs her as she falls overboard to the sharks. Later, Pi returns to grab the knife and kills the cook.

In the present, the writer notes parallels between the two stories: the orangutan was Pi's mother, the zebra was the sailor, the hyena was the cook, and Richard Parker, the tiger, was Pi himself. Pi asks him which story the writer prefers; he chooses the one with the tiger because it "is the better story", to which Pi responds, "And so it is with God". Glancing at a copy of the insurance report, the writer notices a closing comment about the remarkable feat of surviving 227 days at sea, especially with a tiger: the insurance agents chose that story as well.

Trailer: