Have any of you seen the Life of Pi? I've been telling everyone I've seen since I watched it to go and see it as soon as possible. It's an amazing movie. The CGI is so real... it's unreal. It was brilliant, gorgeous, and had impact. Watch it. And read. And if you have, then continue. :)
Now, the rest of this post will contain a lot of spoilers for the movie. So, I'm going to share the YouTube video of the preview's music, and if you have already seen it or don't care, you can continue reading below. :3 This is an awesome song, by the way. Audiomachine has great and epic instrumental music.
It was a great movie. And supposedly, most will believe in God after hearing the story. The twist, though, was that there are two different stories told. And it's up to the reader to choose.
Pi, the main character of the movie (and novel, which I plan on reading soon), and his family embark on a voyage to Canada from India, fleeing the political unrest in their country. They brought the animals from their zoo along, hoping to sell them in North America to earn enough money to restart their lives. In the movie, Pi tells two stories. Both are similar up to the point of the storm hitting the vessel and sinking it. Pi survives on a lifeboat, and then both stories stretch out from there.
The movie takes off into the first story. Pi is a lone survivor along with three animals. A zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a tiger named Richard Parker all end up on the same boat. The hyena kills both the zebra and orangutan. Richard Parker kills the the hyena. Pi, who builds a makeshift raft out of paddles and life jackets, floats close to the boat and isolated, fearing the bengal tiger that is looking to him for its next meal. Their voyage carries on as Pi faces starvation, sea-sickness, and a hungry tiger. Eventually, he successfully conditions and trains the tiger by giving it treats (fish) and they learn to co-exist on the boat. Later on they end up on a Mexican beach where the tiger wanders off into the jungle as Pi is rescued.
The movie cuts to a hospital where two interviewers from Japan, officials from their transport offices, ask for a more realistic story. So, Pi gives them just that. The second story is painfully more believable. When Pi survived in the lifeboat, he wasn't accompanied by animals, but by other survivors. His mother, a cook from the ship, a sailor, and himself are aboard. The cook, worried about their limited supplies, kills the sailor along with Pi's mother when she confronts him. Pi later kills the sailor in vengeance and self-preservation.
In both stories, Pi is a young kid, who survives a voyage of almost 300 days across the Pacific ocean alone, and loses everything he has. Keep in mind, though, I left out a lot of details from each story, and that's up to you to fill those in. I just want to jump to the point of this post.
If you don't see the connection between the two stories, I'll show you. The hyena is the cook. The orangutan is the mother. The zebra is the Japanese sailor. Pi is Richard Parker. But if you watch/remember the movie, the drawn-out and epic story of Pi befriending the tiger, surviving, and carrying on with it is so much more wonderful than that story of murder, suffering, and loneliness.
Most people will scoff at the first story and say, "Something like that isn't even remotely possible. This second story, while awful, is more realistic." And they are so right. I don't think I could ever tame a tiger, much less live on the same boat with one without getting eaten.
But how logical or realistic each story is isn't exactly the ultimate question of the movie; the ultimate question is which one do we prefer?
And, in essence, the author, or Pi, is asking the reader this: Do you prefer to believe only what you can see or prove, or do you choose to believe in miracles or the unbelievable? Do we walk this world alone, or is there something beyond ourselves? Do you live with cold, hard facts, or do you live with wonder and awe?
Regardless of whatever thoughts I have, the facts are these: two stories are told by the same person. That person is the sole survivor and only witness of those stories. There is no evidence that can support the events of either story. Both stories are possible; either could have happened. (Life of Pi itself is NOT a true story, by the way.) And with this all in mind, I still pick the story with the tiger because it's just better.
It's almost like Pascal's Wager all over again, to an extent. This Wager states that we have two choices in life. The first is to believe in God and the second is to not. If we believe in God, then we have the opportunity to gain everything if He does exist. If He doesn't, we don't get hurt, there's just some wasted time and faith. If we don't believe in God, and he does exist, we could risk damnation. If he doesn't exist, we don't gain anything. Believing in God suggests, then, that it's the better option because we either gain everything great after this life, or we lose nothing. Make sense? That's just one of many possible approaches to this.
Anyway, Pi asks the writer in the end which story he prefers. He says the story with Richard Parker because it's better. He replies, "Thank you, and so it goes with God." The writer (whom Pi is telling this story to), was searching for something that would make him believe in God. Sadly, some do not think this movie will do that to a viewer, but rather state that simply humanity believes in God and His story because we want to. We want God to exist, so we believe in him. That doesn't mean, though, God does exist.
And some just leave it at that, disappointed in a movie, and they believe it does nothing more for its viewers (and for the book, its readers) except offer up that one pathetic little point; faith is only around so that people can bear life more easily or survive whatever tragedies we go through.
But I think it's more than just that. When Pi discovers Catholicism earlier in the movie, he meets a priest. Pi tells him that it makes no sense that an all-powerful God would send his only son to die on the cross. The priest replies and says something along the lines that God doesn't desire us to understand him, but to know his love, and to love him in return. He told Pi that it wasn't about finding logic to the story, but the divine and unconditional love at the heart of the story.
This world shouldn't be known or understood through logic or just science, but the heart as well. The heart of our stories and experiences is what matters, not what's logical about them or what makes sense.
And really, it's just that, isn't it? The heart of the story makes the best story. So does this story make you believe in God? I guess not, but I don't think it's suggesting believing in God is foolish, either. I think it offers up that question and causes you to reflect on whether or not you should believe in God or a god... And I think just like most people pick the story with Richard Parker, maybe some of us will choose to believe in something with heart as opposed to just logic.
Anyway, just some late night thoughts. What's your take on this? Comment below, I'm interested to hear what you think! :) What does Life of Pi mean to you?
Check out my girlfriend's post here :)
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