The meaning of the film Life of Pi 2012

The film is filled with a deep meaning, which everyone is free to understand in their own way.

The story begins about an Indian boy who is looking for himself. The boy grows up in a family with a kind and pious mother who reads to him about Hinduism and a pragmatic father. The family has its own zoo.

The hero has an unusual name given to the hero by his uncle, Pisin Molitor Patel, in order to avoid ridicule, he has to prove his place in society since childhood. And, since the boy is not simple, he does it. Shortens the name to a simple Pi.

The boy learns different religions. He is a Hindu, Christian and Muslim at the same time. In each faith, he finds something of his own and, like a child, is not at all shy about it. He prays before eating like a Christian, prays like a Muslim, and doesn’t eat meat like a Hindu. Once running into a Christian church to drink water, he meets with a priest and cannot understand how God could sacrifice his son to atone for the sins of people. Why should the innocent die for the sins of others?

One of the most significant scenes in the boy’s life was an attempt to hand-feed a tiger, Richard Parker. He looks into the eyes of the beast and it seems to him that the tiger understands everything and will not touch him. The boy’s father appears just in time. The father explains to him that in the eyes of the tiger he saw only a reflection of his soul. As proof that the tiger is a predator, the father feeds Richard Parker a live goat. The boy realizes that the world is not as beautiful as he thought. And there is a hierarchy in which to be afraid.

The boy grows up, plays music, falls in love. But the father decides to leave India and move to Canada with his family. They are sailing on a Japanese cargo ship, which, after a storm, is wrecked. The boy tries in vain to save his family. He finds himself in a boat with a zebra with a broken leg, a hyena, a chimpanzee, and a Bengal tiger. Thus Richard Parker. Zebra and chimpanzee are not dangerous, but hyena and tiger are predators. The boy remembers this well. On one of their sailing days, a hungry hyena attacks and kills a zebra and then a chimpanzee. When the hyena tries to attack the boy, the tiger kills her too. Two people remain in the boat – a man and a predator. Who is stronger? How can they exist together?

The boy is trying to tame the tiger and set the boundaries of their common life on the boat. Pi realizes that a hungry beast is a dangerous beast. He catches fish and collects fresh water for the two of them. Maybe, if not for the tiger and taking care of him, the boy would have already given up and died.

One day, their boat is washed up on the shore of a strange island. A floating island of life and death, in the morning providing fresh water and food, and at night, as a result of some kind of chemical reaction, taking life. The boy with the tiger, stocking up on supplies, leave the island.

And here is the long-awaited Earth. They ended up on the coast of Mexico. The moment they are finally rescued, the tiger leaves for the jungle. One of the iconic scenes. The tiger leaves without saying goodbye, without even turning around. They’ve been through so much together… Pi risked his life every day for the sake of the tiger. He fed and watered him. Pi was hurt and hurt. But he left without even looking back, like a man who was helped by God forgets about him as soon as his life gets better.

The guy (yes, the guy, not the boy) was taken to the hospital. It tells the story of an insurance company. The insurers do not believe him and ask him to tell a more reliable story. And he tells. He tells how he ended up in a boat with an unpleasant cook, a sailor with a broken leg and his mother. The cook killed the sailor and his mother, and he killed the cook. They love this story. Because people killing each other is more real in our world than the coexistence of a boy and a tiger in the same boat.

So what happened to Pi? Perhaps he was alone in the boat and struggled with his vices. Indeed, in Indian philosophy, a zebra means humility, a hyena means cowardice, and a tiger means fear. He fights them one on one, like every person all his life. During all his suffering, Pi never once blamed God for what happened. He tries to learn some lessons from this and thanks God that he is alive.

Perhaps the so-called journey of the tiger and the boy shows the existence of God and man throughout life. No matter how ungrateful and indifferent to God a person (in our case, a tiger), God still loves him and tries to help him. And when a person is doing well and he no longer needs God’s help, the person leaves. He leaves without even looking back. Although there is a comparison of Pi with God, for the boy it was survival and self-knowledge, which led him to human happiness.

In addition to philosophy, the film is filled with beautiful shots. We experience all the feelings of the hero as our own.

The film “Life of Pi” is an attempt to mark the place of man in the world, to show what humanity is. In the novel, the author took it upon himself to destroy all the boundaries that separate people. Moreover, he destroyed the boundaries between man and nature, uniting them into a single whole.

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