Like him or not, Ang Lee can be said to be an auteur of some kind. The Taiwanese Director has long since established his visually driven storytelling through such films as Hulk and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and it's safe to say that Life of Pi is no different, really.
Life of Pi follows the older Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) who is retelling the story of when he survived the sinking of a cargo ship when he and his family were moving to Canada to a writer (Rafe Spall). While his early life is quickly skimmed over (largely showing us his love for India, a young girl who he has fallen in love with and a tiger who he has a fascination with called Richard Parker. It is then that we follow the teenager Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) who is the lone survivor on a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a monkey, a hyena and Richard Parker. Safe to say, the survivors on the boat are quickly whittled down and Pi is left to share his only chance of survival with the aggressive Richard Parker. It's a story of faith and belief as Pi tells a story that is difficult to believe, especially when he stumbles across a carnivorous island in the shape of a Hindu diety, Vishnu. Pi challenges the writer to believe in him and have faith that his story is true, or whether he wants to accept the more straight-forward and believable story where something much more straight-forward happened.
Life of Pi, while heavily reliant on the original source material, has Ang Lee written all over it. The film is visually stunning to look at, although I was confused as to why Lee chose to film it in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, rather than a wider screen. There's some beautiful aerial shots of Pi and Richard Parker as they lie in the lifeboat in the middle of the still ocean. There's some beautiful night shots, where the edge of the ocean and the start of the starry night merge together to form as one. And the boat sinking itself was also brilliantly tense as Pi desperately climbed and swam his way to safety, while backdropped against the brightly lit ship under the water. It's some really beautiful stuff.
And then, Ang Lee decides to cross the line of visually stunning storytelling, into a fantasy, whimsical dream like state when Pi and Richard Parker start to become some starved and drained and especially when they come across the carnivorous island. I know the whole film is about belief and getting the audience to have faith that Pi's story is the truth, but it almost felt like it was too much. I didn't want to have a repeat of Hulk where the visuals took over the storytelling and resulted in a boring story, I wanted to have a visually stunning story being told. It's just a shame that it seems Lee let's himself get too lost in the metaphor behind the story rather than actually telling the story.
Having said that, the most intense and interesting part of the film definitely comes within the first hour, where we learn of the young Pi's obsession with taming Richard Parker, the sinking of the cargo ship and then the initial struggle for dominance on the lifeboat between Pi and Richard Parker. It's just a shame that the second half starts to run out of steam - the carnivorous island sub-plot feels very rushed, yet it should have been a major plot point in establishing that when a person gives up hope, that's when they die (as seen when Pi tells the story of another man who gave up hope and was consumed by the island.) Also, when Pi needs to start telling the Chinese insurance company a more 'believable' story, again it feels very rushed and largely skipped over, when it was a story that relied on a lack of faith and should of had equal emphasis as the story with the animals and carnivorous island that required faith (almost as if to give them an equal balance.)
The way in which Life of Pi is told was always going to be the major hook to the story. It's like The Hole, where Thora Birch's character is left telling three different variations of the same story and leaves the audience wondering which is the truth. It's just a shame that we never truly get that sense of doubt in Life of Pi. The story which relies on faith, belief and religion is so shoved down our throats, that I felt it was quite preachy.
On another note, I have no idea why Ang Lee decided to agree to the dilm being in 3D. It literally added nothing to the storytelling. Unless my eyes were doubting me, there was no depth added. The stuff that "flew" out of the screen felt a little bit gimmicky and also quite flat (Li of Pi committed the same sin as Wrath of the Titans and suddenly shifted the aspect ratio of the film so stuff could "fly out" over the black screen space.) I almost felt like the 3D glasses were dimming the visuals on screen, so for the first time I felt that the 3D was a detriment to the film, rather than helping the storytelling.
So, overall Life of Pi is a bit of a mixed bag. While the story started off strong with the establishing of Pi's character and the predicament he faces when stranded on a lifeboat with a ferocious tiger, it fell completely flat in the second half when the visual-vomit from Ang Lee flew across the screen and the idea of faith was shoved down our throats.
**/*****
No comments:
Post a Comment