Imagine losing your family in a stormy shipwreck, and then being stranded alone on a lifeboat with minimal provisions and a giant Bengal tiger. This nightmarish situation is the story of Pi Patel, main character of “Life of Pi,” whose spirituality helped him survive 227 days at sea.
“Life of Pi,” based on the novel by Yann Martel, was a beautiful translation of the book, which is no small feat. The book is actually the story of Pi’s life, as told by an adult Pi (played by Irrfan Khan), to the author through an interview.
This dual story can make for a tough visual translation to make, but director Ang Lee succeeded in telling the story the same way it was told in the book by alternating between scenes of Pi and the writer’s talks and Pi’s survival story.
Released November 21, the movie begins in the idyllic zoo in Pondicherry, India where Pi, played by Suraj Sharma, grew up, describing his childhood, family life, and how he came to his three religions. Pi’s strong faith in Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam was what kept him alive while stranded at sea.
When Pi is sixteen, his family decides to relocate to Canada, bringing their zoo animals with them on a giant freight ship. Four days away from their first stop, the boat encounters a huge storm and sinks, and only Pi is the only member of his family to make it to a lifeboat in time. However, an injured zebra, a hyena, an orangutan named Orange Juice, and a tiger named Richard Parker make their way onto the boat with him.
All the animals are at odds except for Richard Parker, who stays under a tarp covering half the boat. The crazy hyena violently kills the dying zebra, and after getting into a fight with the Orange Juice, kills her, too. After killing the sweet and friendly Orange Juice, Pi is about to kill the hyena when Richard Parker lunges forward from under Pi and kills the hyena.
The rest of the movie centers on Pi training Richard Parker not to kill him while struggling for survival in the Pacific Ocean before Pi eventually reaches safety on a Mexican beach.
Although hardly anything from the book wasn’t covered by the movie, a few things were added, including a love interest for Pi. Before leaving Pondicherry, Pi and a girl fall in love and as a parting gift, she ties a string around his wrist. The bracelet is forgotten until Pi reaches the island, when he ties the frayed string around a tree root, and then nothing is mentioned about the girl for the rest of the movie. At the end when the adult Pi is finishing his story to the writer, he discovers that Pi has a wife, but it is not revealed that she is the original lost love from the beginning of the movie.
The one major thing that wasn’t covered by the movie was when Pi goes blind and encounters the also blind Frenchman that Richard Parker later kills. Although these changes are relatively small, Foothill’s sophomore honors English students who are required to read “Life of Pi” during the summer are likely notice them.
Life of Pi is a tough book to translate into a movie, but “Life of Pi” managed to be accurate, engaging, thrilling, and enjoyable without too many changes to the original plot line.
