My family and our times: LIFE OF PIE

LIFE OF PIE

I would love to go to Regal Theaters Dublin, to watch the show which is being hotly contested for an Oscar award. "Life of Pi" is one of the pictures nominated for many slots in this year's 85th Academy Award to be announced on this Sunday Feb 24, 2013.

The IMAX theater is of course big and beautiful, and well maintained in a huge shopping complex. The seats are comfortable, the arm rests raise up, and the sound system will change your life. Tickets are of course steep and you have to shell out more for 3D, but you're paying for an experience. Harvinder and me went to watch the movie on a Wednesday last week. We were in for a shock of a sort when only one more couple was giving us a company and at that point we owned 50% of that IMAX theater Hall.

Enjoy the show!

Mr. Ang 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. The narrative has been well adapted by David Magee from Yann Martel's celebrated novel.

In the preface, Piscine Patel, a sixteen years old is a son of Pondicherry Zoo Owner, who finally changes his name to the Greek letter Pi(the mathematical constant )to escape from his friends bullies. The roll of Pi Patel is remarkably done well by Suraj Sharma who was picked by the Casting team in New Delhi when he happened to accompany his younger brother for the audition and instead was picked for the roll. His mediocre structure and face full of emotions attracted Lee to go for him for the role of Pie to the utter pleasant surprise of Malayali parents. His Mom handed over Suraj to Ang Lee only after doing a 'Puja' and 'Aarti' like a typical Indian tradition of Guru and Pupil. Ang Lee put Suraj to strenuous tasks and even placed him in an isolated corner of Indian Ocean for long two months so that he virtually gets sickness emotions for living alone in sea waters. Suraj was strictly not allowed to get in touch with outside world. believe me he accomplished his role really well. Suraj is presently majoring in Philosophy from St Stephan's College, Delhi.

An epic storm wrecks a ship which sinks resultantly. Most of the actions are around the life boat when Pi has to deal with a tiger named Richard Parker and also manages a fragile raft. Not too intimate relation between a vegetarian man and a carnivorous beast is the sole theme around which the movie revolves. One deeply moving moment comes when Pi, a Hindu who has studied the Muslim and Christian faiths, catches a fish, kills it, weeps for having killed it and says, through his tears, "Thank you, Lord Vishnu, thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives."

The role of Santosh Patel played by Adil Hussain, a friend of my niece Shimalaya Agnihotri is worth mentioning for his excellent impact on main character Pi.

Yet it's the spectacle of Pi's journey that makes the most lasting impression. Man and beast must work out an armed truce—first out of need, then out of unstated respect. The tiger's weapons are his teeth and claws; the man has his brain. "Maybe Richard Parker can't be tamed," Pi tells himself, "but with God's will he can be trained." I still fail to understand why Suraj has not been picked up for nomination.

There's much more to be excited 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. Ang Lee is at its best to this imagery and with the help of Computer Generated Images a wonderful technology excels to unthinkable heights.

What Ang Lee 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. A must watch!

Another Indian playing the roll of Adult Pi has been superbly played by Irfan Khan as usual. He does very well to tell the story to the interviewer played by Rafe Spall, which is not very interesting but is essential part of the story.

Following are the Nominations and my Predictions of this film:

Cinematography
Claudio Miranda, Expected to win

Directing
Ang Lee, Expected to win

Film Editing
Tim Squyers

Music
Michael Danna

Best Orignal Score
Michael Danna, Expected to Win.

Production Design
David Grapman(Production Design)
Anna Pinnock(Set Decoration), Expected to win

Sound Editing
Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton, Expected to Win

Sound Mixing
Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin

Visual Effects
Bill Westenhofer, gullaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer
and Donald R. Elliot, Expected to Win

Writing
David Magee