Life of Pi

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510... a never ending number with no logic, made some people believe in god.

After watching this film for the fifth time, i thought may be it's time to write something about it. It encapsulates so much through symbolism and momentary frames which is not possible to describe.

It is a journey, it is a feeling, Alas! it is a moment!

**Spoiler Alert** For those who haven't seen the film.

Let's start with the book. I haven't read the book. A film is director's perception of a story and i wanted to feel and understand that' rather than Yann Martel's perception/belief/truth.

Though, I decided to read 'Beatrice and Virgil' to try to feel Yann Martel and believe me, he is a hell of an experimental storyteller. When we think there can be no new way of narrative story telling, he comes up with fantastic unbelievable ways to show you what he wants. However, the basic idea of using animals to remove stereotypical notions of people remains the same. This could be attributed to his life in India near zoos and other things. (We need this detail for analysis.)

'Life of Pi' resounds the life of Pi Patel. Well, symbolically, it isn't that. It represents the irrational number Pi, it's life. The number goes on and on. We can try and find a logic to get the next number in this decimal series, but it's random. Your logic will fail sooner or later. Many people regarded it as god's number and we are talking about the life of this living number.

Philosophically, this number is everyone. You, me and Piscine Molitor Patel.

The character of Pi is shown reading a story about lion and a boat (I can't recall the name), Albert Camus' L'etranger and Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground. While reading fantasies one imagine things as they happen, Camus tells about how people take the right to be judgmental for granted and Dostoevsky cunningly and lovingly explains about morality:

"When they prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow-creatures, and that this conclusion is the final solution of all so-called virtues and duties and all such prejudices and fancies, then you have just to accept it, there is no help for it, for twice two is a law of mathematics. Just try refuting it."

These things are important to know to realize what kind of philosophy flows through the film.

In the next post we will discuss Camus and Dostoevsky: How Camus adopted Dostoevsky's 'The Possessed' in a play. He attempted something big ever done in theater history and how Ang Lee replaced Camus and Martel replaced Dostoevsky with same philosophy for 'Life of Pi' to take place.

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