Personally I thought that the second version was clearly true from Pi’s emotion while telling the story. Secondly why make up such a painful story? He could simply have said that he was the only survivor on the boat and he managed to survive using the manual and provisions. That was perfectly believable.
I think the story with Richard Parker was Pi’s way of coping with incredibly harsh tragedy , not just losing his family but actually seeing his mother murdered in front of him and having to kill her murderer. Similarly God is a way humans cope with the often harsh reality of their lives. But at a pragmatic level the fantasy worked and Pi managed to put his past behind him and create a better life. So also perhaps with God at least for some people.
That is a perfectly valid view of looking at it & I think the point is you can take either view. One is the way of stepping away from what you know is true and a rational mindset and the other is with staying with what you know and reason (Dad’s view). I read that the the author put in the carnivorous island ro further force that choice (though apparently in the book Pi is found with meerkat bones in the boat - which adds another interesting wrinkle)
We both enjoyed the movie…it should get piles of nominations if not awards.
But what did the Island represent in the rational (Dad’s) view? I seemed to have missed that or it was not explained towards the end. I saw the Island as another religion (Taoism) that Pi was interjecting into his first version account and that the Island was Yin-Yang.
As for the animals symbolizing the characters Pi, Mother, Cook and Sailor, unlike Zebra, it wasn’t apparent to me. I can understand Pi=Richard Parker because of Dad’s explanation of your eye’s reflection when you look into the eyes of an animal…I believe there was a scene where you could actually see human eyes (inside the reflection of the tiger’s eyes) in Richard Parker’s eyes. As for the other three relationships…didn’t see that coming. As another poster mentioned, how did Pi’s mother get on that boat? IIRC, I do remember the sailor and the cook trying to get the lifeboat lowered into the water. I was thinking back if the Zebra somehow knocked the sailor off the lifeboat and/or broke his leg earlier in the movie. Or how the hyena might have interacted with the cook during that scene (if at all…it was a short and fast moving scene). When it was revealed that Orange Juice was Pi’s mom, I did recall earlier in the movie that Pi had asked Orange Juice that she was missing her son, but we would find him soon. Not sure if they meant Pi himself or his brother Ravi.
I know I am rambling, but we saw the last show of the night which finished at 1:00am, so I’m going off of some fuzzy recollections.
Were the animal analogies not apparent to you at the onset, after Pi being forced by the Japanese to tell a more “real” version, or at the very end where the white journalist explicitly said it out? My gripe was that the journalist had to spell it out.
I’ve read that in the rationalist view the island was representative of some sort of inner turmoil in Pi - it would kill him to just decide to rest/relax and not try to get saved anymore.
Though I’m thinking that others who actually have the rationalist view could better explain it.
I realized it when the Japanese questioned his first story and Pi told the second version; I guess I didn’t get too annoyed that the journalist reconfirmed what I had heard earlier…it was pretty late (for me) at that point.
I have found this in SparkNotes since my first post:
I also noticed that in the wide shot of the island, it resembles a prone (or is it supine? I always mix those up) human figure.
Given that Pi encounters the island when he is in the last extremeties of hunger, I thought it sort of symbolizes his being driven to cannibalism in order to survive.
Also, I think what makes Richard Parker represent Pi in the analogy is that his struggles to avoid being killed by RP, Pi’s efforts to dominate him, his assertion that without RP he would surely have died, and RP’s abrupt and permanent departure into the jungle at the end, we can see an allusion to Pi’s inner battle between the veneer of civilization and the instinct to survive at any cost (an instinct that can go back into remission, as it were, when Pi reaches land and is rescued).
Saw it today, in 3D. I don’t think it needed 3D. Not for my eyes anyway.
“This is a story that will make you believe in God.” Big words. In order to survive something horrific you resort to fantasy, delusion and hallucinations. Afterwards you decide the delusion is nicer than reality so you go with what’s nicer.
“And so it goes with God.”
So God is whatever it takes to make it through the day, I guess?
Saw it over the weekend, and am still thinking about it. I haven’t read the book, so I had no preconceptions going in. The visuals were stunning, of course (and we did spring for the 3D). I am not as convinced as others that there is a deep philosophical message behind the storyline.
Same here. This is one of my favorite books. I’ve discussed it in several book club discussions. From my limited sample, there seemed to be a difference in how religious and non-religious people saw the book. Very religious people interpreted the story very literally. Non-religious people interpreted the story more metaphorically.
I saw an interview with Margaret Atwood and Bill Moyers in a series called ‘On Faith and Reason’ where she mentions the book and said that she chooses to believe in God. (It’s not in the linked clip, but is part of that interview, IIRC)
I’d say you are probably right on the breakdown between religion and non-religious people. Though I was interested to find that President Obama actually wrote a letter to the author of the book after he and his daughters read it back in 2010 to thank him for writing it and descibed the book as “an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling”. I’m intrigued as to why the President considered it a ‘proof’ of God.
O.M.G. I just saw this today. It is easily the most powerful movie I have seen in years. I have a hard time with watching violence, especially where animals are concerned, but it was worth it. I hope it wins tons of awards.
Like Lantern, I think the story was Pi’s way of coping with the terrible things that happened to him. He hints at that when he says that RP kept him alive. I don’t think he could have faced his trauma head on and survived.
I’m a little confused as to whether this message is supposed to be as it claims (make you believe in god) or if it’s deliberately subversive.
The real message to me seems to be “we’re here, and there’s misery, and we’re at the whim of circumstance - but we tell ourselves the pleasant story of a loving god because it makes for a more pleasing worldview” - which actually seems to be subversive towards religion and faith.
But are others, like Obama mentioned above, actually taking this story to be an affirmation of the existance of God?
Now it’s actually quite clever in a way - it almost seduces you into having a reason to deliberately choose to believe in god despite knowing on some level that it isn’t true - as clearly the narrator knew it wasn’t, so in a way, I could buy its tagline “it will make you believe in God”
But I can’t see how religious people could interpret this as an actual affirmation of their beliefs - an argument that God does exist.
Loved the movie though, I was actually really pleased with the way it turned out. In these movies the rational skeptic father character would be made out to look like the bad guy, or at least unenlightened, and the warm new agey take on “all religions lead to the same god” would dominate, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the case. At least if I’m interpreting it correctly. But clearly people must be interpreting it differently.