dvd of the week
Ang Lee won his second Oscar for directing this gorgeous adaptation of Yan Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, a book that begins with an old man saying that “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” The film begins similarly, with Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) telling his life story to a writer (Rafe Spall). The centerpiece of this is when the ship that is carrying teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma), his family, and their zoo animals sinks, and ultimately only Pi and a tiger make it to a lifeboat. I blame the film’s lack of theological profundity on David Magee’s adaptation, which underemphasizes Martel’s philosophical insights while overemphasizing Pi’s story of survival. Ang Lee and his cinematographer Claudia Miranda, however, overcome Magee’s script to produce the most visually stunning film since Avatar.
