2103 Oscar Nominee Review - Life of Pi

Life of Pi is, throughout, a visually impressive and, in the end, a mentally challenging trip. Ang Lee’s adaptation of the best-selling 2001 novel by Yann Martel places a young Indian boy named Pi in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with a hungry Bengal tiger. The events that lead to this bizarre situation are odd but less peculiar than the journey that follows. Mingling the fantastic with delusion and dream (or vision), Lee pushes Martel’s Pi through a journey of ambiguous nature. The principal objective is survival; but surrounding that goal is a possible parable about the character of the world… of life, faith and truth. Matching this spiritual context, Lee transforms the natural world surrounding Pi’s trial into something beyond natural. Lee’s imagery gives the feel that someone has turned up your visual sense knob past its maximum 10 to a Spinal-Tape 11. The world around floating Pi is hyper-ised – the oceans too calm or too wild, the colors of landscape and sky are beautiful but not quite correct. The castaway’s realm displays as if injected with some sort of growth hormone that has caused it to become a Dali-like globe canvas for Lee to paint Pi and his carnivorous companion.

Pi’s story, it was said, will make one “believe in God”. An established but blocked novelist was told this in India by Pi’s maternal uncle, and the author comes to visit the adult Pi, now living in Canada, to hear the story and possibly gain some inspiration for new book. Pi (portrayed at different ages by different actors but played as the adult Pi perfectly by Irrfan Khan) narrates the film as he recites the story to the would-be scribe. Pi starts by telling of his youth as a son of a zoo owner. Central to this first chapter and key to the adventure tale that follows is Pi’s acute interest in understanding God and the relevance he finds in religion. Much to his rationalist father’s chagrin, Pi finds truth, or at least peace, in the teachings of many religions mixed together – Pi explains: “ None of us knows God until someone introduces us. I was first introduced to God as a Hindu. There are 33 million gods in the Hindu religion. How can I not come to know a few of them?”  

Pi’s life journey shifts dramatically when his family decides to close the zoo and immigrate to Canada where they will sell the animals. This decision puts large animals in a large ship on a stormy sea:

Adult Pi: Now we have to send our little boy to the middle of the Pacific.

Writer: And make me believe in God.

Adult Pi: Yes, we will get there.

The ship sinks. Only one lifeboat survives the storm and in short time there are just two left on that small boat… man and beast. Pi and the tiger travel at the will of the ocean or of God maybe; first separated by what distance is possible, then together in a necessary truce.

Pi’s ocean adventure is a digital masterpiece. I did not see the film in 3-D but I can’t imagine it being any more vivid. Although you can tell the difference between the live tiger (used sparingly) and the CGI tiger, the computerized depiction is amazingly fine. Lee piles additional pseudo-natural wonders onto the screen - a giant whale raising out of the ocean to pierce a super crisp night ski, a battalion of jelly fish illuminating a glass ocean, a field of Meer cats on a floating island. On the ocean, Lee’s visuals dominate the spiritual. But the uncle’s claim remains hovering behind the images…”make you believe in God” – what does that mean?

That the story is a combination of thrilling adventure tale and mystic allegory does not weaken its power in either mode. Rather the two themes team nicely together, the latter focusing the former. Although you may be carried away in the visual, Life of Pi is more than just a tale of the fantastic or fantasy. It forces ones head to tilt a bit... makes you ponder why we believe what we believe…  9 out of 10.

2013 Oscar Winner Review - Argo

Readers over 50 may clearly remember the events of November 4, 1979 when Iranian militants overran the US embassy in Tehran taking hostage all who were inside. But we likely do not remember the life-or-death, CIA-led operation to rescue the six Americans who walked out of that embassy minutes before it was taken. We don’t remember that part because it was never told to us (until now)… and we probably would not have believed their story if it had been.

Indeed, Argo’s tale of how CIA agent Tony Mendez (played by Ben Affleck who also directs) managed to extract six US embassy workers out of revolutionary Iran is so outrageous that it could not have really happened. But it did. And it’s that fact - that the film is chronicling a real event – along with superb execution, that gives the film’s fairly standard caper story line an intensity edge and special feel.  

During the frantic take over of the U.S Embassy, amidst the record shedding, frantic phone calls, and fear and panic, six staffers leave the building to a side street and just walk away. Initially, Iranian revolutionaries are unaware of their escape to the home of the Canadian Ambassador, but it's only a matter of time before they are discovered unless they are evacuated. Back in D.C., Agent Mendez is brought into upper-level intelligence strategy sessions to consult on rescue approaches for the six. Unimpressed with the plans being considered to get the Americans out, Mendez puts forth his own proposal – inspired by watching “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” with his son the night before. The cover story would be that he and the six are part of a movie production crew scouting locations for a sci-fi movie called “Argo” (for you true Sci-Fi fans the script selected for the cover story was originally titled Lord of Light, based on the book of the same name by Roger Zelazny – the CIA renamed it Argo). Mendez would get in and set up the cover, train the six in their new identities, then walk the crew through the airport and get on a plane home... ridiculous right? Everyone agrees that all possible options are bad but that this idea is as crazy as it sounds:

CIA Bosses: "You don't have a better bad idea?"

Agent Mendez: “This is the best bad idea we have, sir”

The script sets up the story in two parts and Affleck deftly transitions from one, the comedy of developing the ridiculous cover story, to the other, the tension of its execution in Iran. Mendez needs to make the cover as real as possible and enlists the assistance of make-up pioneer John Chambers (there’s the Planet of the Apes connection), played by John Goodman. Alan Arkin plays a cantankerous producer, Lester Siegel, whom Mendez and Chambers convince to join the charade as the “big name” behind the film. Goodman and Arkin are both outstanding in these supporting roles. Oddly, Arkin’s Siegel may be the most memorable and interesting character in the film yet the only main character that is fictional. Arkin captures a particularly poignant moment that seems to set the tone for the transition between comedy and tension when, about to turn down the offer from Mendez, he sees a newscast of a blindfolded hostage on a small TV in the meeting room. The magnitude and humanity of the situation becomes real and heavy in that moment compelling him to help regardless of the likelihood that it will be a completely wasted effort.

Argo is a very good movie; nominated for seven academy awards and winning 3 including Best Picture. It is an unsensational portrayal, relying on the narrative of the event to hold attention and evoke emotion. It is difficult to resist getting caught up in the skillful presentation and current of the story. Despite the fact that you already know (maybe) how the event ends, there is great tension and I found myself egging the six on… verbally, out-loud to the screen… it’s that well done. Since these reviews are sort of a series of Oscar Best Picture critiques, I can’t help but compare it to those previously reviewed here.  So here goes… Argo is good but Lincoln is the better. But Argo is still a must see and gets and 8 out of 10.