Life of Pi (2012)

[Brian G Turner]

So watched the film and really enjoyed it - watched it with the kids and it's highly recommended.

But I have a real problem with the message.





SPOILERS!! DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU'VE NOT WATCHED THE FILM AND PLAN TO!






Ok, so this is supposed to be a spiritual story, and I presume in the book there's a lot of interesting metaphysical discussion.

However, my big problem with the film is that the message appears to be: when faced with a choice between an uncomfortable truth, or a wonderful lie, the second is God. People chose the lie because it's easier to accept. That is why they turn to God.

But my contention is that this is an atheist argument: effectively, God is dismissed as a lie, not true. God is an imaginary comfort.How can this be considered a spiritual argument?

Did I miss a meeting on this, or did the film just make a hash of the book's original message?

Simply that any message claiming that God does not exist, whether for Christians, Muslims, or Hindus, as anything but a spiritual message. It's an atheist manifesto IMO.

Have I misunderstood something?

Btw, this discussion is not about whether God exists or not - simply trying to understand how the film Life of Pi relates to belief.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Did I miss a meeting on this, or did the film just make a hash of the book's original message?

ermmm, it has been over a decade since I read Life of Pi, but I don't remember it being spiritual or metaphysical. Magic realism, yes.

...so to repeat the warnings






SPOILERS!! DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU'VE NOT READ THE BOOK AND PLAN TO!





(I'm cutting down what's there - but writing it out as it is, hope you can follow.)

God gets a briefest mentioning when the two Japanese investigators get to the end of the second, true account of what happened to Pi. Pi leads with:

"You can't prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it."
"I guess so."
"In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer."
"Yes, that's true."
"So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without the animals?"
...
Mr. Okamoto: "Yes. The story with animals is the better story."
Pi. Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."



And that's it, as far as I can remember, spiritual-wise. Now Pi was forced to tell the second account - including the killings and cannibalism because the investigators told him they didn't believe the account with the tiger. However, I suppose the point here is that there is no evidence for the second account either (although I suppose the hint is that it is the actual truth, we are still relying on an unreliable narrator for this account too).

So what do the investigators believe? They went for the better story on a tie break so to speak, as there was no evidence one way or the other and it didn't matter to them which account actually was true, they were only concerned with the sinking of the ship, not what happened afterwards.

However if we see the same events from Pi's perspective, then it becomes different. I think he personally turns to God because he, the tiger, has done some terrible things and he must live with his actions. Perhaps he needs a God to be there to forgive his sins, so to speak. (Could you live with killing a man and eating him?) Thus with no evidence either way he chooses to believe in a deity, because it's a better story for him.

Is this an argument for God? Clearly it didn't impact me that much in the spiritual sense . I suppose it depends how you define 'better' - it's really a case of your own personal choice, I suppose.

 

[Moonbat]

SPOILERS ALSO!!!!!




I read the book a few weeks before seeing the film, so I would say that the film doesn't really screw with the message of the book, it does leave out some of the earlier parts, prior to him getting on the ship there is more to do with his three religions. In fact I found that the start of the book was quite preachy, particularly there was a section that I found quite insults (as an Atheist).
Pi talks about Agnostics being unwilling to make a decision about God, and he treats atheists as just another belief. He says something along the lines of, When an Atheist dies he will see the light and the beauty of God and change his mind at the last moment and embrace the wonder, but when an Agnostic dies he will explain away the light and pleasurable feeling as a lack of oxygen to his brain. Now I got annoyed with this because the light and pleasurable feeling would also be a lack of oxygen for the atheist and so I was quite insulted that he suggested my beliefs would be turned at the end. But that is just me.

I too felt that the conclusion of the story was a bit silly, considering the story claims that you will believe in God when you hear it. And both Sonia and I agree that the story without the animals would have been an amazing story, tense full of human emotion and rather interesting, but in the story (both book and film) it gets less than 1% of the time the other story gets. So it would be a better story because it has so much more detail.

The film itself is good, the look of it, the fantastical experience is all very cool, the Tiger looks great (in the book there is more gore when the other animals die) and it is a fun film, but I'm not sure I'd agree with its religious claims. I wonder how someone who does believe would feel about it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Mr. Okamoto: "Yes. The story with animals is the better story."
Pi. Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."

Indeed - Pi knows the version with the animals is a lie. It may be a better story, but it is still untrue. Hence my interpretation of the message is that "God = lie" and don't understand how that can be claimed to be spiritual.

I keep being minded of a quote in GRRM's Game of Thrones from Tyrion: "Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”

 

[Venusian Broon]

Indeed - Pi knows the version with the animals is a lie. It may be a better story, but it is still untrue. Hence my interpretation of the message is that "God = lie" and don't understand how that can be claimed to be spiritual.

I keep being minded of a quote in GRRM's Game of Thrones from Tyrion: "Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”

Thanks Moonbat for filling in the stuff at the front - it had passed me by in the intervening 10+ years that I'd read it. Clearly it had not stuck in my agnostists brain.

According to the writer of the novel - so we should give this some weight (at least it's reported on Wikipedia) - he summarised it as

"Life is a story... You can choose your story... A story with God is the better story."

The only thing I can think of to say in favour of such a view is only that we believe that the second account is true. The reality is that it is just another story, in fact could be a lie as well. We are the Japanese investigators, who faced with no evidence, facts or otherwise make a choice on what is better to believe.

As for Pi's position, that is a different matter. We, the readers, are not meant to be in his shoes - perhaps he is more a prophet???

Personally I find the truth a better story - I am a trained scientist - so I read Life of Pi as a fantasy adventure with a twist at the end, and I'm with you Brian about the religious message (that really passed me by on reading it!)

 

[sinister42]

So watched the film and really enjoyed it - watched it with the kids and it's highly recommended.

But I have a real problem with the message.





SPOILERS!! DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU'VE NOT WATCHED THE FILM AND PLAN TO!






Ok, so this is supposed to be a spiritual story, and I presume in the book there's a lot of interesting metaphysical discussion.

Stopping you there. Read the book. Really really read the book. It's one of the best and most well-written books in the history of ever. Once you've read the book, the movie will make a hell of a lot more sense, and it will move you.

 

[Starbeast]

Excellent movie, but it's not rewatchable for me.

Exceeding spiritual, but very sad.

 

[Vertigo]

I saw the film just the other day whilst I was in New York (damn but you folk have a lot of adverts on tv) and was impressed enough to immediately add the book to my wish list.

I figured that he was saying that the stories are not provable just as the stories of the various Gods (note that he deliberately does not limit himself to one religion) are not provable. However we choose to believe them and they make a better story. If you cannot prove one way or another then go with the one that suits you best. However someone (Obama I think) is supposed to have said that the story is the most elegant proof of the existence of God he'd seen. Personally I don't see this, in fact it seems like the perfect piece of fence sitting; saying that believe is purely down to the individual and whether the belief is correct or not is irrelevant.

I also think that a large part of the film, where he is learning to control the tiger, is not about religion but about the self; about the need for each person to control our own self. And how life is easier for all if we can just achieve that.

 

[George Ian]

It's a brilliant book and a very good film. I spent a good thirty minutes trying to decide on 'the message' but then gave up - life's too short.

 

[kythe]

I really like the religious philosophies presented in both the book and the movie. It's refreshing to see religion handled in a way that does not try to "convert" the reader. The story, with it's horrible reality, simply illustratrates why people turn to religion to cope with life.