Danny Djeljosevic">
Psycho Drive-In logo
Search
  • PDI Press
    Featured
    • Q Clearance

      Danny Djeljosevic
      March 4, 2021
      Fiction, PDI Press Writers
    Recent
    • Q Clearance

      Mike Burr
      March 4, 2021
    • ON SALE NOW! NOIRLATHOTEP 2: MORE TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN CRIME!!

      psychodr
      December 31, 2018
    • VOICES FROM THE NIGHT: The Living Dead Tell Their Stories

      John E. Meredith
      October 31, 2018
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    Featured
    • Chaos Walking (2021)

      Danny Djeljosevic
      April 13, 2021
      Movies, Reviews
    Recent
    • Chaos Walking (2021)

      Nate Zoebl
      April 13, 2021
    • Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

      Paul Brian McCoy
      April 2, 2021
    • Zack Snyder’s Justice League: A Review, Comparison, and Breakdown

      Paul Brian McCoy
      March 24, 2021
    • Books
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
    Featured
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      Danny Djeljosevic
      July 13, 2018
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      The Final Girl
      July 13, 2018
    • David Black: Carnies, Carnage, and the Creative Chaos of Darkness Visible

      Dan Lee
      March 7, 2017
    • Jaiden Kaine joins the Marvel Universe as new Luke Cage baddie, Zip

      Andre Lamar
      September 29, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Batman: The Killing Joke

      Jason Sacks
      July 28, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Syfy’s Van Helsing

      Dave Hearn, Paul Brian McCoy
      July 27, 2016
    • Wondercon Interview: The Cast of Damien

      Gary Richardson, Laura Akers
      April 16, 2016
  • News
    Featured
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      Danny Djeljosevic
      July 30, 2019
      DVD/Blu-ray, News
    Recent
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      psychodr
      July 30, 2019
    • X-Men: Dark Phoenix arrives on Digital 9/3 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD 9/17

      Paul Brian McCoy
      July 16, 2019
    • Avengers: Endgame arrives on Digital 7/30 and Blu-ray 8/13

      psychodr
      July 16, 2019
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Breaking
  • Chaos Walking (2021)
  • Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
  • Zack Snyder’s Justice League: A Review, Comparison, and Breakdown
  • Psycho Goreman (2021)
  • Advance Review: Bad Girls (2021)
  • Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
  • RSS
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Who We Be
  • Contact
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Home
Movies

Life of Pi (2012)

Danny Djeljosevic
November 21, 2012
Movies, Reviews

When do you welcome a movie into your pantheon of stupendous achievements in cinema? At what point do you reject a movie as complete and utter bullshit? I’ve always felt it’s best not to judge too quickly either way, as a film can always surprise you by taking an unexpected turn that makes you rethink the time leading up to it. This is the experience of watching Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, a film that almost succeeds as an engrossing story until the thing goes off the rails and you realize what you’re really watching.

Based on Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi is the story of Pisine “Pi” Patel, an Indian man who begins life in a Wes Anderson film. Named after a French pool, he’s taught to swim by a mustachioed Indian strongman and, once he starts school, recites as many digits of pi that he can to ensure that his peers no longer call him “Pissing.” The relevant bit is that, raised Hindu, he also takes on Christianity and Islam to get a multifaceted view of god and believes that animals have souls like us, much to the chagrin of his atheistic zoo owner of a father, who goes as far as forcing him to watch as a helpless animal is mauled and devoured by their zoo’s Bengal tiger, Richard Parker — named so due to a clerical error.

Soon, as an older boy, Pi’s father decides to uproot his family and their animals from their Indian town of Pondicherry to start a new life in Canada. Their ship sails through a terrible storm in the middle of the ocean, and the result is one of the most intense and thrilling shipwreck scenes ever put to film, as waves jostle the ship, wind and rain buffet Pi as he struggles to maintain grip on one of the lifeboats and zebras swim for dear life through the flooded bowels of the ship. In mere minutes the sequence threatens to top the entire second half of Titanic for harrowing ocean-related catastrophe. Call it We Drowned a Zoo.

pi1

Once the storm clears, we reach the meat of the movie as Pi’s lifeboat transforms into a miniature Noah’s Ark with the presence of an orangutan, an injured zebra, an overzealous hyena and — oh fuck — Richard Parker the tiger. Quickly, what at first promises to be a fun animal adventure charts a course for Bummerville, leaving Pi and the tiger as the only survivors. I know, I know hanging out on a boat with vaguely personified animals is not what the book is about, but if you start to promise me a movie about a rag-tag animal crew surviving in the middle of the ocean and immediately rip that away from me, I get a little annoyed, especially if sometime later you present your main character with an opportunity to let the tiger drown but instead have him figure out a way to get him back in the boat*.

Either way, Ang Lee was probably the best choice to direct an adaptation of Life of Pi. Nature is a constant presence in Lee’s films — especially when human nature is put at odds with nature itself. It’s a constant presence in films like Hulk (shut up it’s great) and Brokeback Mountain, which are both intensely emotional stories. Life of Pi takes that idea and cranks it up to deafening levels as Pi finds himself in a desperate situation facing pure nature as only Werner Herzog could appreciate — the uncaring, violent natural predator. Call it, Aguerre, the Wrath of Pi.

pi2

The entire section of the movie with the lifeboat and the tiger makes for incredible filmmaking and storytelling. Once you get past his blown opportunity to kill the damn thing, the weird interaction between Pi and Richard Parker is quite compelling as we watch a man try to live with a beast in a very extreme situation. It’s also an amazing film to look at as Lee and cinematographer Claudio Miranda — DP of such beautiful but empty films as Tron: Legacy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — create striking visuals and amazing colors all over the place. It’s also stunningly shot in 3D, and while post-production 3D conversion is often cheap and useless, I maintain that it can be a really great tool for movies actually shot in 3D.

So far, I’ve made it sound like I really like the film. Let me clarify — overall, I enjoyed those parts. However, Lee and screenwriter David Magee unravel all that goodwill by sticking to the novel’s framing device — an adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) is recounting his story to a novelist (Rafe Spall**), who may or may not be Martel himself and who was told that Pi had a story that “would make you believe in God.” These scenes may have worked in the novel, but in the film they grind the narrative momentum to a screeching halt in order to explain obvious things to the audience. One time we cut to the present so the author can sum up the film thus far, but this device gets especially egregious once the film’s big twist *** happens and Spall’s character straight up explains its meaning, even though anyone with a brain could interpret it. At that point I literally took off my 3D-glasses in disbelief and wondered what happened to the visually arresting movie I was looking at.

pi3

There’s a great film somewhere in Life of Pi, a strange, psychedelic one-man odyssey where survivalism meets hallucination (HINT: There’s an amazing scene where Pi finds what he eventually deems a “carnivorous island”) and viewers are left to figure it out for themselves. Lee seems most engaged when trying to grasp at that story, but Martel’s source material is so caught up in handwringing about human secularism and religion and also explaining what that handwringing is all about that nobody’s allowed to have any fun or even think about what the film means on their own. It’s like being in hippie detention.

Frankly, I don’t give a fuck about what Life of Pi is trying to convey about the nature of religion or how you can train a tiger to keep away from you instead of letting Poseidon murder it. That said, I think it’s a must-see film, especially in a nice theatre with a big-ass screen and 3D glasses uncomfortably resting on your face. It’s the best opportunity to use the adjective “sumptuous” that I’ve seen all year, but then again I didn’t see The Master in 70mm so maybe I’m wrong about that.

Either way, it’s kind of bullshit.

pi4

*I know, I’m probably talking out of turn as an agnostic Westerner and I know Pi views all creatures as having souls, but hey — I’m a vegetarian who feels bad when he kills flies in his apartment, and in my gut I know I would have let that tiger drown with a glee reserved for Three Six Mafia at the Oscars.

**Spall’s character was originally played by Toby Maguire, but Lee chose to reshoot those scenes with Spall because he thought having Maguire appear in a film with an international cast of mostly unrecognizable actors would be distracting. Spall is cosmically fortuitous casting considering his role in Prometheus.

 

***SPOILERS: The twist made me laugh, and not in the “ho ho ha ha, you got me there!” kind of way, but in the “You gotta be fucking kidding me” way. This is basically an extended lecture. It’s a clever way to show why otherwise sensible, thinking people buy into religion, but as someone who’s into the fantastic and seeing weird stuff, I have an annoyance for stories where the fantasy is revealed to be a lie or hallucination all along. Which means that movies like Franklyn and Big Fish and even The Fisher King seriously turn me off.

(Visited 37 times, 1 visits today)
Life of Pi (2012)
2.5Overall Score

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Ang LeeLife of PiRafe Spall

Stones in Exile
Boardwalk Empire 3.10: “A Man, A Plan”

About The Author

Danny Djeljosevic
Creative Dynamo / Tightrope Walker

Danny Djeljosevic is a comic book creator, award-winning filmmaker (assuming you have absolutely no follow-up questions). Follow him on Twitter at @djeljosevic or find him somewhere in San Diego, often wearing a hat. Read his comic with Mike Prezzato, ”Sgt. Death and his Metachromatic Men,” over at Champion City Comics, his webcomic The Ghost Engine, with artist Eric Zawadzki, and check out his Tumblr.

FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK

Daily Top Ten

  • Angst (1983) Blu-ray ReviewAngst (1983) Blu-ray Review by Serdar Yegulalp
  • The Strain 1.09 “The Disappeared”The Strain 1.09 “The Disappeared” by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Sick Flix: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)Sick Flix: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) by Corin Totin
  • The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005)The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005) by Jessica Sowards
  • BLADE RUNNER 2049: The Sad and Lonely World of the ImaginationBLADE RUNNER 2049: The Sad and Lonely World of the… by Psychodr
  • POPCORN CINEMA 40: Mooning Nazis in the IRON SKYPOPCORN CINEMA 40: Mooning Nazis in the IRON SKY by John E. Meredith
  • Women in Horror: They Call Her One-Eye, or Thriller: A Cruel PictureWomen in Horror: They Call Her One-Eye, or Thriller:… by John E. Meredith
  • Sick Flix: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)Sick Flix: Tokyo Gore Police (2008) by Corin Totin
  • The Witch (2016)The Witch (2016) by Adam Barraclough
  • Women in Horror: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)Women in Horror: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by The Final Girl

PDI Press Bestsellers

Entertainment Earth

Weekly Top Ten

  • All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero (2016)All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero (2016) by Fred L. Taulbee Jr.
  • Page to Screen: The Boys Season OnePage to Screen: The Boys Season One by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Sick Flix: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)Sick Flix: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) by Corin Totin
  • The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)The Final Girl: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by The Final Girl
  • Sick Flix: Cannibal Holocaust (1980)Sick Flix: Cannibal Holocaust (1980) by Corin Totin
  • If It Ain't Funk He Don't Feel It: Howard the Duck (1986)If It Ain’t Funk He Don’t Feel It:… by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Advance Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Blu-rayAdvance Review: The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Blu-ray by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Shakespeare's Macbeth (2010)Shakespeare’s Macbeth (2010) by Paul Brian McCoy
  • Women in Horror: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)Women in Horror: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by The Final Girl
  • Sick Flix: Guinea Pig 6 – Mermaid in a Manhole (1988)Sick Flix: Guinea Pig 6 – Mermaid in a Manhole (1988) by Corin Totin
Entertainment Earth

Latest Reviews

  • Chaos Walking (2021)

    Nate Zoebl
    April 13, 2021
  • Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

    Paul Brian McCoy
    April 2, 2021
  • Zack Snyder’s Justice League: A Review, Comparison, and Breakdown

    Paul Brian McCoy
    March 24, 2021

Latest Columns

  • Lost in Translation 377: Pacific Rim – The Black

    Scott Delahunt
    April 16, 2021
  • Anything Joes: S01E15 – G.I. Joe #5 / Tanks For The Memories

    Greg Engle
    April 15, 2021
  • Anything Joes: UNBOXING: G.I. Joe Classified Flint and Lady Jaye

    Greg Engle
    April 12, 2021

INSTAGRAM

psychodrivein

Today at http://psychodrivein.com Lost in Transla Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Lost in Translation 377: Pacific Rim - The Black

Pacific Rim: The Black expands the setting, showing more of the world introduced in Pacific Rim and the effects of the kaiju invasion on people.
---
Read more of Scott's article at the link in our profile!

#LostInTranslation #PacificRim #TheBlack #PacificRimTheBlack #Kaiju
Today at http://psychodrivein.com Greg and Jaren Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Greg and Jaren take a look at the MOBAT's big day out as it strolls through a parade and tries to survive a Cobra ambush!
---
Check out Greg and Jaren's video at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes #GIJoe #ARealAmericanHero #MarvelComics #Mobat @anythingjoespod
Today at http://psychodrivein.com Chaos Walking ( Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Chaos Walking (2021)

Chaos Walking has been shrouded under the ominous reputation of “troubled production” from its very inception.
---
Read more of Nate's review at the link in our profile!

#ChaosWalking #DaisyRidley #TomHolland #MadsMikkelsen #DougLiman #FedeAlvarez #DavidOyelowo #PatrickNess
Today at http://psychodrivein.com Anything Joes: Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Anything Joes: UNBOXING: G.I. Joe Classified Flint and Lady Jaye

Jaren takes a look at the newest Classified figures to hit shelves: Flint and Lady Jaye!
---
Watch Jaren's video at the link in our profile!

#AnythingJoes @AnythingJoesPod #GIJoe #GIJoeClassified #LadyJaye #Flint #Unboxing
Today at http://psychodrivein.com Beautiful Creat Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Beautiful Creatures: Night of the Lepus (1972)

Night of the Lepus is genuinely a science-fiction/horror in name only.
---
Read more of Dan's article at the link in our profile!

#BeautifulCreatures #NightOfTheLepus #JanetLeigh #RoryCalhoun #DeForestKelley
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 9 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 9: Blood Quantum (2019)

Blood Quantum satisfies all my zombie film cravings and is one of the strongest genre entries in years.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #Zombies #BloodQuantum #JeffBarnaby #BrandonOakes #ElleMaijaTailfeathers #ForrestGoodluck #GaryFarmer #KiowaGordon #MichaelGreyeyes #StonehorseLoneGoeman
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 8 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 8.2: [Rec] 4: Apocalypse (2014)

Anyway, [Rec] 4: Apocalypse is a perfectly fine zombie movie set on a boat.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #Zombies #Rec4Apocalypse #IsmaelFritschi #HectorColome #PacoManzanedo #ManuelaVelasco #JaumeBelaguero #ManuDiaz
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 8 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 8.1: [Rec] 3: Genesis (2012)

Granted, [Rec] 3: Genesis doesn’t really break new ground, but it is solid at what it does.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #Zombies #Rec3Genesis #PacoPlaza  #DiegoMartin #LeticiaDolera
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 7 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 7.2: [Rec]2 (2009)

[Rec] 2 opens with the final shot of the previous film before shifting our focus to a new set of cameras.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #Zombies #Rec2 #ManuelaVelasco #JonathanDMellor #JaumeBalaguero #PacoPlaza #ManuDiaz
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 7 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 7.1: [Rec] (2007)

[Rec] is a film that puts people in peril and then steps on the gas, refusing to let up until the shocking final moments.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #Zombies #Rec #JaumeBalaguero #PacoPlaza #ManuelaVelasco #PabloRosso
Today at http://psychodrivein.com EZMM 2021 Day 6 Today at http://psychodrivein.com

EZMM 2021 Day 6: Dead Shack (2017)

Dead Shack is not heavy on scares and the zombies are practically an afterthought, but if you like juvenile humor there’s a dark streak to this film that delivers in the end.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#EZMM #EZMM2021 #EasterZombieMovieMarathon #DeadShack #Zombies #PeterRicq #LaurenHolly #DonavonStinson #MatthewNelsonMahood #LizzieBoys #GabrielLaBelle #ValerieTian
Today at http://psychodrivein.com Godzilla vs. Ko Today at http://psychodrivein.com

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

If there was ever a film that deserved to be seen on as big a screen as possible, it’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
---
Read more of Paul's review at the link in our profile!

#GodzillaVsKong #Godzilla #Kong #Kaiju #LegendaryPictures #MonsterVerse #AdamWingard #MechaGodzilla #AlexanderSkarsgard #DemianBichir #EizaGonzalez #EricPearson #JulianDennison #KayleeHottle #KyleChandler #MaxBorenstein #MichaelDougherty #MillieBobbyBrown #RebeccaHall #ShunOguri
Load More... Follow on Instagram

TWITTER

My Tweets

Look Who's Talking

Ray
Ray - 3/3/2021
The Searchers: A Quaint and Polite Film about Racism, Rape, and Remorse
Bad review. Ethan doesn’t reject the family or society at the end, he realizes there is no place...
Amari Wolfe
Amari Wolfe - 12/11/2020
Popcorn Cinema: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Don't know why, but the mention of Whammo Air Blasters made me laugh until it hurt. Very nicely...
mega leo
mega leo - 12/5/2020
Women in Horror: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)
To torture someone takes a cold kind of sadism. One that exceeds rage or revenge. One that shows a...
RSSTwitterFacebookinstagramtumblr

Archives

Large_rectangle_336X280
All work on this site is Copyright © each individual writer.
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
%d bloggers like this: