#TheLifeofPi: A pygmy review. (Warning: philosophical spoilers ahead)

"The Life of Pi" is gorgeous. Full stop. The effects take turns, initially realistic and then increasingly hyperrealistic; gritty then sublime. Since we learn at the end of the film that the entire story is almost certainly a fabrication of the highest order, this hyperrealism becomes not only reasonable, it becomes essential. And yet, while I was astonished by images of perfect star fields reflected in calm seas and bioluminescent schools of jellies scattered by breaching humpback whales, for me the film's philosophy was the most intoxicating.

The thing about art is this: it is open to interpretation. So long as you can point to the reasons for holding your interpretation, it is as valid as anyone else's, including the person who created the work of art. Upon reading #YannMartel's "The Life of Pi" nearly 10 years ago, I took it for a work of faith. After all, the author says, by way of his protagonist, that by the end of the book we will believe in God. Surely, if nothing else, "The Life of Pi" is a comfortable, if naive, plea for universal religious tolerance.

But the end of the book left me somewhat confused and disoriented, ambivalent to the author's intent. That intent--or at least my interpretation of it--is far more clear after having seen director #AngLee's film. For me, "The Life of Pi" is clearly a critique of faith, not an endorsement of it.

At the end of the book/film, Pi asks his listeners which story they prefer, given the fact that they can prove neither one: a boy adrift on the sea for more than 200 days with only wild animals as companions, or a boy adrift on the sea for more than 200 days with humans who act like animals? The story with the animals, they reply. So it is with God, he responds. Indeed. So it is with God. And this is the heart of the art, and the question it demands of all who take it up: when it comes to you, is a beautiful, entertaining and uplifting story preferable to reality? For me, #CarlSagan said it best: "Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable."

http://youtu.be/mZEZ35Fhvuc

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