Monday Movie - Life of Pi

While in Nashville for Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to take my grandson, Soren, to see the movie, Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee. The story was mesmerizing and the production was beautiful. I enjoyed it and was pleased that Soren enjoyed it too.

Based on the very popular book by Yann Martel, Life of Pi is a quintessential postmodern story. It draws into question the relationship of truth to story, the difference between experience and explanation, the intersection of perception and reality, and the overlap of belief and knowledge. I'm sure these questions and ideas are developed much more fully in the book (which I ordered as soon as I got home from the theater).

Early in the movie we meet a man who needs a story (a writer) seeking out another man (the adult Pi) who has a story from his boyhood. The writer was told that Pi's story is so amazing that simply hearing it might cause you to believe in God. Just what belief and what God may be another matter to sort out. The important idea woven through the story is that truth is much more than fact, religion, or information. A true story will need to be bigger than those. In this respect, Life of Pi reminded me a great deal of the underlying concepts in the movie, Big Fish.

I encourage you to see Life of Pi, and if you do, I hope you go to the theater expecting more than an adventure story and great movie effects. There is good food for thought here. Please go with somebody else, somebody willing to spend some time afterwards to talk about it.