YANN MARTEL VS: ANG LEE

Yann Martel deemed Life of Pi as “un-filmable” because of its “enormous technical challenges.”  Indeed, filming a young adolescent boy alone with a Bengal Tiger on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean poses certain technical challenges.

Yet, Ang Lee took on the project. Long gone are the days of Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1983), when actors were in contact with actual wild animals on set (Katherine Hepburn was almost attacked by the leopard on the set of Bringing Up Baby, she was saved by his trainer as the leopard was about to lunge at her back). Ang Lee was not allowed to shoot the tiger at the same time as his lead actor, Pi Patel (played by Suraj Sharma). Instead, he had to intercut between footage of a real tiger and a digital one. Bill Westenhofer (visual effect supervisor of Life of Pi) disposed of hundreds of hours of real tiger footage, and he conducted a team of fifteen artists to work on animating the ten million hairs of the tiger’s fur. The amount of meticulous work put in to the CGI alone is astounding. However did Ang Lee take this device a little too far?

When Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) came out, spectators were drawn to its innovative visuals rather than its mediocre screenplay. This isn’t the case with Life of Pi (thankfully), and let us not forget that is was a best-selling novel first and foremost. Although Yann Martel defined his story as “un-filmable,” it would be absurd to deny the copious amount of stunning imageries he uses throughout his novel. Through an illustrious description of a fanciful island, the ocean’s “smooth skin reflecting the light with a million mirrors,” and comparing the killing of a dorado to “beating a rainbow to death,” one can’t help themselves from picturing while reading. Ang Lee clearly saw this too – especially through the sea-life sequences. He personifies the sea as a powerful and unpredictable key to the plot. The story sways through the constant rhythmic movements of the waves, making the spectators feel slightly seasick at times (as well as the protagonists). The grandeur of the movements are epic, and the scene when the wale crashes out of the fluorescent sea (due to the jellyfish) is memorable (the thought of it still sends shivers down my spine). Another striking moment was when the camera swam through the ocean like a fish, focusing on an Architeuthis (giant squid) who then latches on to a whale, that transforms itself into the Pondicherry zoo animals (hippopotamus, crocodile, leopard, giraffe, rhinoceros and zebra). This may all sounds abstract (and absurd?) but it’s a lot more interesting than the mindless science fiction depicted in Avatar.

                           

Life of Pi is about the power of story-telling : “Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story,” reminds us of a Socratic comment. This “mise en abîme” automatically becomes clearer in the book, as it is literally “a story within a story.” There are two narrators: the writer who is directly speaking to the reader, and Pi, the main character, of whom we read the story. This isn’t very clear in the film. It would seem as though we have three narrators: the writer, the young Pi and the older Pi. The film overuses flashback between the older and younger Pi, which interrupts the magic of the story-telling. The voice of the young Pi (largely explored in the book, as we read his direct thoughts), comes out as quite abstract for someone who hasn’t read the book. It is difficult to sympathize with the character because although we see him struggle a great deal to stay alive, we are not aware of his immediate thoughts. Perhaps more voice-over on his part would have done his character justice make his character more believable. I also have some reservations about the casting of Suraj Sharma (cast as the young Pi). A stronger and more experienced actor would of done his part better justice. The monologue at the end was well performed but some of the dialogues when he speaks to the animals in the boat sound off. The first animal he speaks to is the hyena. The delivery of his lines lacks emotion – he is clearly reciting them to a green screen. Perhaps it’s also a failure on the part of the screenwriter who should of internalised his speech rather than having Pi ramble out loud. It would of made more sense to have him speak out later on in the film, after his solitude grew to an outgoing state of delirium (I can’t help but think of Tom Hanks and his beloved Wilson in Cast Away).The rest of the time, he is shouting out to God in numerous rainstorms. This too fails to develop his part as we cannot hear nor decrypt his words due to the high level of sound effects in the background. In the book, there are moments that make us smile when we realize that the narrator is just a boy. For example, the description of the “ugly beyond redemption,” hyena (along with another vivid description of the tiger), the detailed butchering of the turtle (explaining his disgust, especially as he’s a vegetarian). There are many survival elements in the book that we fail to see in the movie. Perhaps it was because of the explicit content it could have created (which would of changed the rating of the film from a PG 13 to an R, reducing its prospective audience). Overall, the actions on the boat seemed too fast paced through rapid editing (discovering the food, building multiple rafts although there was only one in the book). There was also a much larger emphasis on the visuals of the tiger and the aesthetics of the scene rather than developing Pi’s character. Lee’s interpretation of Martel’s ocean’s “smooth skin reflecting the light with a million mirrors,” is a still golden motionless ocean. It seems overdone and screams sci-fi.

“If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?” This appears in both the book and the film. We are reminded about story-telling and also the theme of Love. To my great disappointment, the romance story between Pi and Anandi at the beginning was an added element to the film – and an unnecessary one too. The story is meant to “make you believe in God.” Pi is obsessed with learning how to love God so surely that should have been the only source of Love. Ang Lee chose to delete one of the most amusing and key scenes of the book when the religious leaders of Pi’s three chosen religions confront each other and refuse to believe that Pi is equally “a good Christian boy,” “a good Muslim boy,” and “born a Hindu,” therefore will “die a Hindu.” When the argument turns to Pi, his response (memorable to say the least) is “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.” The three men are forced to approve of this and the argument comes to an end. From one shot to another, the movie shows Pi discovering a Catholic church to then praying on a rug at home. It’s as if Ang Lee chose to replace Pi’s religious encounter with one dull puppy-love relationship. Is he dumbing it down purposely, willing to avoid any religious and political conflict?  Looking back, the warm lighting at the beginning, used in the Pondicherry zoo with the Parisian music playing as well as the Hindu Lullaby reminds us of a the beginning of an upbeat contemporary Disney movie. Story-telling shouldn’t have to immediately be linked to child-like fantasy. Life of Pi is a story about youth to begin with, but Pi is clearly mature and driven. It’s as if suddenly Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006) became a children’s movie. It’s far from being one, although Ophelia clearly chooses to compare her real life to a world of fantasy that she makes up in her head. In my opinion, Ang Lee was challenged by who his targeted audience really was, drowning himself into the quality of his effects and failing to exploit the true “Adult” themes which are, devotion to religion/God, and developing your survival instinct.

I hate to sound influenced by the “dichotomous thinking,” expressed by Robert Stam in The Theory and Practise of Adaptation, which relates to a “bitter rivalry between film and literature.” Perhaps I was too harsh when criticizing the film’s visual effects which are pleasing to the eye, and I don’t want to downsize the fastidious work of Ang Lee. I do believe that Film and Novel should be treated as two different entities (as they are) and in the case of Life of Pi, they could work hand in hand. One for the treatment of the visuals, and the other for the integrity of the character. Lastly, one can’t help but notice a faint echo to Big Fish (Tim Burton, 2003), where we had a similar interweaving plot differentiating “Man from Myth,” and “Fact from Fiction.”