Movie Analysis
Title:
Life of Pi
Genre: Fiction - Fantasy
Characters:
Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) - The protagonist of the story. Piscine is the narrator for most of the novel, and his account of his seven months at sea forms the bulk of the story. He gets his unusual name from the French word for pool and, more specifically, from a pool in Paris in which a close family friend, Francis Adirubasamy, loved to swim. A student of zoology and religion, Pi is deeply intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people.
Richard Parker - The Royal Bengal tiger with who Pi shares his lifeboat. His captor, Richard Parker, named him Thirsty, but a shipping clerk made a mistake and reversed their names. From then on, at the Pondicherry Zoo, he was known as Richard Parker. Weighing 450 pounds and about nine feet long, he kills the hyena on the lifeboat and the blind cannibal. With Pi, however, Richard Parker acts as an omega, or submissive, animal, respecting Pi’s dominance.
Francis Adirubasamy - The elderly man who tells the author Pi’s story during a chance meeting in a Pondicherry coffee shop. He taught Pi to swim as a child and bestowed upon him his unusual moniker. He arranges for the author to meet Pi in person, so as to get a first-person account of his strange and compelling tale. Pi calls him Mamaji, an Indian term that means respected uncle.
Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) - The protagonist of the story. Piscine is the narrator for most of the novel, and his account of his seven months at sea forms the bulk of the story. He gets his unusual name from the French word for pool and, more specifically, from a pool in Paris in which a close family friend, Francis Adirubasamy, loved to swim. A student of zoology and religion, Pi is deeply intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people.
Richard Parker - The Royal Bengal tiger with who Pi shares his lifeboat. His captor, Richard Parker, named him Thirsty, but a shipping clerk made a mistake and reversed their names. From then on, at the Pondicherry Zoo, he was known as Richard Parker. Weighing 450 pounds and about nine feet long, he kills the hyena on the lifeboat and the blind cannibal. With Pi, however, Richard Parker acts as an omega, or submissive, animal, respecting Pi’s dominance.
Francis Adirubasamy - The elderly man who tells the author Pi’s story during a chance meeting in a Pondicherry coffee shop. He taught Pi to swim as a child and bestowed upon him his unusual moniker. He arranges for the author to meet Pi in person, so as to get a first-person account of his strange and compelling tale. Pi calls him Mamaji, an Indian term that means respected uncle.
Ravi - Pi’s older
brother. Ravi prefers sports to schoolwork and is quite popular. He teases his
younger brother mercilessly over his devotion to three religions.
Santosh
Patel - Pi’s father. He once owned a Madras hotel, but because of his deep
interest in animals decided to run the Pondicherry Zoo. A worrier by nature, he
teaches his sons not only to care for and control wild animals, but to fear
them. Though raised a Hindu, he is not religious and is puzzled by Pi’s
adoption of numerous religions. The difficult conditions in India lead him to
move his family to Canada.
Gita Patel - Pi’s beloved mother
and protector. A book lover, she encourages Pi to read widely. Raised Hindu
with a Baptist education, she does not subscribe to any religion and questions
Pi’s religious declarations. She speaks her mind, letting her husband know when
she disagrees with his parenting techniques. When Pi relates another version of
his story to his rescuers, she takes the place of Orange Juice on the lifeboat.
Satish Kumar - Pi’s atheistic biology
teacher at Petit Séminaire, a secondary school in Pondicherry. A polio
survivor, he is an odd-looking man, with a body shaped like a triangle. His
devotion to the power of scientific inquiry and explanation inspires Pi to
study zoology in college.
Father
Martin - The Catholic priest who introduces Pi to Christianity after Pi wanders
into his church. He preaches a message of love. He, the Muslim Mr. Kumar, and
the Hindu pandit disagree about whose religion Pi should practice.
Satish Kumar - A plain-featured Muslim mystic with the same name as Pi’s biology
teacher. He works in a bakery. Like the other Mr. Kumar, this one has a strong
effect on Pi’s academic plans: his faith leads Pi to study religion at college.
The Hindu Pandit - One of three important religious figures in the novel. Never given a name,
he is outraged when Pi, who was raised Hindu, begins practicing other
religions. He and the other two religious leaders are quieted somewhat by Pi’s
declaration that he just wants to love God.
The Hyena - An ugly, intensely violent animal. He controls the lifeboat before
Richard Parker emerges.
The Zebra - A beautiful male Grant’s zebra. He breaks his leg jumping into the
lifeboat. The hyena torments him and eats him alive.
Orange Juice - The maternal orangutan that floats to the lifeboat on a raft of bananas.
She suffers almost humanlike bouts of loneliness and seasickness. When the
hyena attacks her, she fights back valiantly but is nonetheless killed and
decapitated.
The Blind Frenchman - A fellow castaway whom Pi meets by chance in the middle of the ocean.
Driven by hunger and desperation, he tries to kill and cannibalize Pi, but
Richard Parker kills him first.
Tomohiro Okamoto - An official from the Maritime Department of the Japanese Ministry of
Transport, who is investigating the sinking of the Japanese Tsimtsum. Along with his assistant,
Atsuro Chiba, Okamoto interviews Pi for three hours and is highly skeptical of
his first account.
Atsuro Chiba - Okamoto’s assistant. Chiba is the more naïve and trusting of the two
Japanese officials and his inexperience at conducting interviews gets on his
superior’s nerves. Chiba agrees with Pi that the version of his ordeal with
animals is the better than the one with people.
The Cook - The human counterpart to the hyena in Pi’s second story. He is rude and
violent and hoards food on the lifeboat. After he kills the sailor and Pi’s
mother, Pi stabs him and he dies.
The Sailor - The human counterpart to the zebra in Pi’s second story. He is
young, beautiful, and exotic. He speaks only Chinese and is very sad and lonely
in the lifeboat. He broke his leg jumping off the ship, and it becomes
infected. The cook cuts off the leg, and the sailor dies slowly.
Setting: Summer of 1977; India; Mexico; Pacific Ocean; Canada
The novel is a work
of fiction set in the summer of 1977 that draws on places and historical events
in India. The Patel household's discussions of the political situation refer to
historical events. Pondicherry is a former French colony in India. It does have
an Indian Coffee House and Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Garden currently
has a toy train track and a small aquarium, but it does not have a zoo. It had
a zoo in the 1970s, but did not have any animals bigger than deer. Munnar, the
destination for the Patel family's vacation, is a small but popular hill
station in Kerala. Madurai, also referenced in the novel, is a popular tourist
and pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu.
Plot: Summary
The story is about Pi, whose interesting background is
shown in the preliminary half hour or so. His family owns a zoo, and he grows
up with some interesting stories. This opening section of the film is very
whimsical and fun. Pi’s
family decides to move to Canada, so they wind up on a freighter traversing the
seas with their animals, trying to get to the Western Hemisphere. A
killer storm hits, sinking the freighter (don’t hate me for spoilers, it’s in
the trailer) and leaving Pi with a lifeboat full of animal friends, most
significantly a tiger. And so we get the struggle, the “story” behind it, which
is supposed to prove to us the existence of a higher power.
Theme: Storytelling
The act of storytelling and narration is a significant
theme throughout Life of Pi, but particularly in the narrative frame.
That Pi’s story is just that a story is emphasized throughout, with
interjections from the author, Pi’s own references to it, and the complete
retelling of the story for the Japanese officials. (This is not to mention
chapter ninety-seven, which contains two words: “The story.”) By including a
semi-fictional “Author’s Note,” Martel draws the reader’s attention to the fact
that not only within the novel is Pi’s tale of survival at sea an unverified
story, but the entire novel itself, and even the author’s note, usually
trustworthy, is a work of fiction.
This
is not to say that Martel intends the reader to read Life of Pi through
a lens of disbelief or uncertainty; rather, he emphasizes the nature of the
book as a story to show that one can choose to believe in it anyway, just as
one can choose to believe in God—because it is preferable to not believing, it
is “the better story.”
Symbolism: The Color
Orange
In Life of Pi, the
color orange symbolizes hope and survival. Just before the scene in which the
Tsimtsum sinks, the narrator describes visiting the adult Pi at his home in
Canada and meeting his family. Pi’s daughter, Usha, carries an orange cat. This
moment assures the reader that the end of the story, if not happy, will not be
a complete tragedy, since Pi is guaranteed to survive the catastrophe and
father children of his own. The little orange cat recalls the big orange cat,
Richard Parker, who helps Pi survive during his 227 days at sea. As the
Tsimtsum sinks, Chinese crewmen give Pi a lifejacket with an orange whistle; on
the boat, he finds an orange lifebuoy. The whistle, buoy, and tiger all help Pi
survive, just as Orange Juice the orangutan provides a measure of emotional
support that helps the boy maintain hope in the face of horrific tragedy.
Questions:
What does the
title mean in relation to the film as a whole?
Pi himself might not
be immortal, but his story is. In the title, Martel reminds us both of the
continuity of life and the openness of Pi's story. Meaning, the story doesn't
limit itself to Pi. Ideas, people, religions – anything with the spark of life
– all follow, to some degree, the pattern of messiness and depravity and hope
in Martel's novel.
Among the
characters, to whom can you relate to?
I think I can relate
to Pi himself, because like me I got separated with my parents when I was young
due to the fact that they need to work abroad. I was left alone independently
in the wilderness to survive.
Which part of
the presentation struck you the most? Why?
When Pi struggled on
his own knowing that his parents died on the boat but still he has enough
courage left to survive. I like this part because most people would just allow
them self to die because of frustration and sadness.
What is the
movie’s message?
You can accomplish
every tasks and challenges in life as long as you are determined not just in
mind but also with your heart.
Did I like
this in general? Why?
Yes, because it boosts
our knowledge and wisdom on how life can be tragic, life is fair, not all the
time you are on top but there will also come a time you will end at the bottom,
there you will be tested on how strong you really are.
Did I agree
with the main theme/purpose? Why or why not?
Yes, I agreed because
it made me inspired on how life can be difficult at times. But as long as you
can survive the dark side of our life there will always be the brighter one.
What
specifically did I like/dislike? Why?
I like the island,
because I can relate it to what is happening in our world today, temptations
are everywhere, once you decided to enter it is hard for us to turn back. That
island represents the beauty of what the world offers us, while at night it shows
its true colors that’s why we always have our regrets afterwards.
Are there any
aspects of theme which are left ambiguous at the end? Why?
For me it’s when Pi
tamed the tiger at the end imagine how a ferocious beast can also be the boys’
best friend. It only shows that no matter how hard a person is, there is always
a softer side in him, you just need to discover it and I believe this process
takes time and you need to be a lot more patient just what Pi demonstrated in
the movie.
How does this
film relate to the things that are happening in your life?
I think I can relate
the whole film to my life, I may have some struggles and difficulties in
handling a lot of problems but so far I still manage to survive and overcome
all of this. I always think to always look on the brighter side at times I am
down, and I always dedicate myself to achieve that bright side to overcome the
darker ones.
