Skip to main content

"Which Story do you Prefer?"


Mychael Danna, beautifully crafted the music of Life of Pi and comes with probably the most soulful theme of the decade - "Which story do you Prefer". As a filmmaker, Ang lee probably made Danna feel every characters and situations and recreate it with music.

We all understand that a film couldn't make us feel the temperature of sun, or the moisture at sea, it is just the music which could be close to these feelings. Likewise, in that track, there is a moment of self reflection, and probably a dilemma - Not to Pi, but to all of us who want to find a meaning out of it.

As Pi asks towards the end that why you need to find meaning out of it. Because when you do, you will have to stick to your perception about truth. When you try to find meaning, you always keep trying but never get it. Like no one understood the Pi = 3.14159..... cause it's just life, raw life. You don't have to desperately try to give meaning to it.

But we do give meaning to our ongoing life, we try to give ourselves a motive, a god, destiny, to live in this meaningless world. Pi isn't just us, it's universal and resides in all, he is like Buddha's Zen. It's Life of 'Pi'  but we try to leave the film with a conclusion and meaning of our own. We want to know which story is true while, we don't understand that the story we prefer will seem true to us. We are nowhere near Pi (Pi not as an external being, rather someone within us) and this is the Life of Pi.

I agree that I haven't covered everything (the island) but that just appeared to me like a warning. A warning to the life we are living. The short term happiness we get through technology and exploiting resources will be taken away at night. What the island gives at day, takes away at night. It was important for Pi as he realized the transitory nature of lives and things. He pictured it in his mind as visiting the mystic island.

After reading this far, it would be a foolishness for us to ask which story is actually true! We could just wonder if we could feel a Pi inside us every moment...

Seriously, A film that matters!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The whimsical phrases of 'Capital I'

10 years from now, this film would be remade and probably then the original would be looked upon. There hasn't been a cinematic piece in a long time which was driven solely by such individualistic expression. Be it the philosophical discussion or contemplative imagery, everything screams of the psyche of one individual - 'Capital I'. **Read this after watching the film once** Visually profound and intelligently crafted, at the core of this film you can find an identity and a story embedded in each other. The story of a girl struggling to identify herself with a strict sexual orientation and resorts to 'something' to escape her reality, while a physics professor helps her resolve the conflict in her mind. The identity of a mysterious character named Capital I is presented through its work - visuals and poetry, driven by curiosity among various characters in the film about it. The film portrays the two themes uniquely, bravely. However a harmonic fusion betw...
Post a Comment
Read more

Le Quattro Volte

A very beautiful film with no dialogues at all. Empty spaces and long silence is used for self-reflection, reflecting our own act of perception. A film that needs to be seen with no preconceived notions about it. You could watch the trailer here:  http://bit.ly/17Pk0rw ** Spoiler Alert ** First Time: An old man is shown lost in vague emptiness. He probably lost his way in the society (like a goat!), and resorts to some superstitious beliefs to survive his deteriorating health. No matter how absent minded he might be, he perfectly herds the cattle. It’s like he was doing the same thing for so long that it became a mechanical process. His cautiousness about the cattle (finding the bell in the forest) is very natural. We see him die, maybe, due to already degraded health or the mishap (loosing of the sacred packet) which made him fail to carry-on his belief on which he was living. We are faced with a doubt about which of the two took his life? Second Time:  With o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sheru

'Sheru' is a Hindi word meaning LION in English, this was the closing statement of the film which stayed with me a lot longer than it's running time. An euphoric feeling of finding something special mixed with an attachment to the characters and story, made me write about it. Even though the structure is that of a typical Hollywood narrative - context, conflict, climax, but the film is more about the emotional depths it touches in that structure. The film left three words in my mouth - 'Brilliant Fucking Acting'. - Read this after watching the film once - As exhilarating it was an experience of discovering one's identity, this film, for it's commercial viability, has been biased to portray a one-dimensional story. However, the director leaves a few cues here and there to instill curiosity in the mind of an active watcher for other characters as well. Nicole Kidman playing the role of Sue Brierley narrates a vision of hers in which She sees a brown...
Post a Comment
Read more