Life of Pi The Movie - The Teenager and The Bengal Tiger

It has been a week since the movie "Life of Pi" was shown in theaters all over the United States. Directed by Ang Lee and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the story was adapted from Yann Martel's 2001 fantasy adventure novel which revolves around an Indian boy from Pondicherry named Piscine Molitor Patel/Pi who managed to survive 227 days stranded on a boat floating in the middle of Pacific Ocean together with a carnivorous Bengal tiger named Richard Parker as his sole companion. The novel is said to imply "issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age" that the main protagonist had shown thorough the entire story.

Hitting the screen last November 21, the Life of Pi is garnering positive reviews all over the web and was described by RottenTomatoes as a "groundbreaking movie" and gained an average rating of 8.7 out of 10. "A 3D adaptation of a supposedly "unfilmable" book, Ang Lee's Life of Pi achieves the near impossible -- it's an astonishing technical achievement that's also emotionally rewarding," RottenTomatoes commented.

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times, on the other hand, saw the film as a “miraculous achievement of storytelling" and "a landmark of visual mastery." He also referred to the film as one of this year's best films, which "combines various religious traditions to enfold its story in the wonder of life".

Wall Street Journal's columnist Joe Morgenstern wrote in his review:

"There's much more to marvel at in this production: a whale breaching in the night, immensely phosphorescent; a carnivorous island literally crawling with little meerkats (and almost submerged by a tsunami of symbolism); an assault by squadrons of flying fish, and, most marvelous of all, the ocean. Has anyone before Ang Lee rethought the visual essence of water? What he and his cinematographer, Claudio Miranda, have done in several sequences is to treat water like a mirror, a radiant medium that floats the lifeboat and its passengers on a glassy surface, or to render it invisible, a magical absence that suspends living creatures in a state of ecstatic grace."

"Mr. Lee's film is stronger as a visual experience-especially in 3-D-than an emotional one, but it has a final plot twist that may also change what you thought you knew about the ancient art of storytelling," Morgenstern commented.

With such great reviews, the "Life of Pi" is rousing the curiosity of readers, movie-goers and modern-day philosophers who wants to see a rare film with depth philosophical thoughts about God, life and survival. Here's a sneak peek of the movie:


Sources: Rotten Tomatoes | The Wall Street Journal