Ang Lee isn't thought of as an Asian auteur in the class of Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou or Lee Chang-dong. He's actually more of a commercial director than a personal artist, but what he does in transferring the "Life of Pi" from novel to screen is miraculous. Perhaps no director has ever captured the beauty and fear of the power of life, and when you look deep into the eyes of the tiger "Richard Parker", you see what Marlowe saw in Kurtz's eyes in Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness": a power so vast it dwarfs you with an awareness of your mortality, showing you your insignificance beside the powers of all life. What Ang Lee does here in this film will, I believe, remain his tour-de-force, and is a work of art I will come to many times in the future.
The acting is wonderful, primarily Infan Khan, one of India's greatest actors who plays the adult Pi. Khan provides an entire acting course just in the way he uses his face, displaying a smile in the film's climax that rivals the Mona Lisa's in its ambiguity. You see the world of pain, guilt, joy and sadness in his delicate expression.
The film is supremely spiritual in every frame, yet, if one is paying attention, it winds up as somewhat of a Trojan Horse in what it ultimate reveals about religion. I'm trying hard not to provide a spoiler here, but there are five words spoken by the adult Pi at the end of the film that viewers seem to miss that spell it out. But moving away from its theme, no film I have ever seen in my life comes close to "Life of Pi" in relating the sheer force of nature (making you experience the beauty and terror in the soul of a tiger) and the cosmic beauty of our world, both inner and outer. Using 3-D more brilliantly (and essentially) than any film to date, this film burned into my mind incredible visual sights impossible to find anywhere else, showing me beauty I will remember the rest of my life.
Highly recommended, and one that truly deserves to be seen in 3-D.
Synopsis: Embark on the adventure of a lifetime in this visual masterpiece from Oscar winner Ang Lee*, based on the best-selling novel. After a cataclysmic shipwreck, an Indian boy named Pi finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with a ferocious Bengal tiger. Together, they face nature's majestic grandeur and fury on an epic journey of discovery.
Starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan
Supporting actors: Tabu, Gérard Depardieu
Directed by: Ang Lee
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Runtime: 2 hours 7 minutes
Captions and Subtitles: English Details
Release year: 2012
Studio: Fox
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for emotional thematic content throughout, and some scary action sequences and peril
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