I’ve seen bits of the movie that alternately make it look like a disaster survival movie and some kind of fantasy scifi flick(weird floating meercat island).
What is the point of the story?
It’s a guy on a small boat with a tiger. What more do you want?
That you might as well believe in god because it is a better story.
Not just a better story, but an important coping mechanism.
I read the book and was no better informed at the end than I was at the beginning.
This is my justification for believing the Harry Potter series is a documentary.
Thank you! I thought I was the only one.
I’ve come to realise that movies that get Oscar recognition generally don’t adhere to storytelling rules. Both The Descendants and Midnight In Paris left me feeling unsatisfied, like huge chunks of story were completely absent. It doesn’t surprise me to hear Life Of Pi is similarly bereft.
I think everyone will get different messages out of Life of Pi, but for me, the big message was related to the coping mechanism Pi created in his mind to get through the tragedy.
On the most basic level, it’s a fable. It’s an allegorical tale about living in a precarious world. It draws heavily on the “magical realism” literary genre, which tells fantastical but grounded folktale-like stories that evoke strong emotions while, underneath it all, telling a story about the real world.
On a larger level, it’s a story about how one man discovered that human need to use narrative to make sense of the world.
On an even larger level, it’s making a statement about the role of religion and spirituality in individual world views and society as a whole.
Whether or not it’s particularly deep is up to debate. But it is certainly using well-established storytelling techniques to make a pretty straightforward point.
That’s too cryptic for me.
I think this is quite an eloquent and accurate take on this story. Well done.
I agree. I loved Life of Pi, and I usually don’t care for that sort of movie. So it must have done something right.
I got all the different levels that sven detailed and yet, I still didn’t care for it. By about half way through, I was rooting for the damn tiger.
It is indeed. I didn’t love the story other than the visuals, but that’s a great summation.
I was rooting for the tiger the whole time! He was a large part of what I liked about the movie. 
It’s about a tiger, and a boy, and the power of the imagination, and… oops, wait, that was Calvin & Hobbes I was thinking of.
OK, thanks. I didn’t get much out of the movie and wondered if the book delivered. Guess I can skip it.
Excellent summary! It is also interesting how the view of the story differs among believers in God (such as myself) and non-believers (ie, the “truth” of the narrative & the limits of rationality and trusting the reasonable explanation vs. a coping mechanism & people creating stories to make the world seem better).
There’s too many MFing Tigers on this MFing boat!
Originally posted by Thudlow Boink
It’s about a tiger, and a boy, and the power of the imagination, and… oops, wait, that was Calvin & Hobbes I was thinking of.
The Life of Calvin