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With the exception of Oliver Stone's ten-part mini-series The Untold History of the United States, no two films from 2012 do a better job at depicting what's wrong with the world today, than Craig Zobel's Compliance and Ang Lee's Life of Pi. Like the perfect wine pairing, these films should be watched back-to-back to bring out each one's full spectrum of flavor and insight. Don't make the mistake I did of watching Compliance first, better yet, save it for the second course -- a dish that will cool your palate after choking down Lee's turd-warm appetizer.
The Life of Pi is a story achingly familiar, not for the subject matter itself, but in the way it is presented to us -- this is a cozy narrative formula audiences have gobbled up for decades, and based on Pi's critical reception it seems to be a taste no one is tiring of. Like Forrest Gump and countless other epic Hollywood yarns, Pi takes you on a magical, moral journey, a fiction tethered to the present in wholly unnecessary bouts of present-day exposition (presumably for those in the audience not paying strict attention). We are witness to the exotic and fantastic voyage of yesteryear by our humble narrator, told in CG-rich flashbacks, all in the name of getting the empty vessel of the aspiring writer (aka the audience) to a point where God is accepted. Unfortunately, this leap of faith comes after a Shaggy Dog twist reveals to us that the primrose path we've been led down, was in fact tended with manure. But fear not, since our heroic narrator has taken the initiative of convincing us the true story is so horrible, we will blithely prefer the flowery fiction he himself has succumbed to, so long ago. The last few times I remember a Hollywood film attempting to convince me fiction was preferable to reality was Tim Burton's Big Fish and Jeremy Leven's Don Juan De Marco. Perhaps I can forgive these two films for selling me on love and compassion, but Pi is selling us God...an entirely different can of worms.
If after being misled for two plus hours you're still not sold on "God" then you might be asking yourself: why exactly would the story of a tiger on a boat really be better than the gritty realist drama of four desperate humans on a lifeboat? I suppose the answer to why so many would prefer fiction over fact is perfectly presented in the hard to watch "Inspired by True Events" Compliance. When a complete stranger calls and tells you he's a police officer, then you'd probably do whatever you were told to do, right? Even if this cop was pushing you to commit sexual assault, rape, etc.? I can't remember being more frustrated by poor decisions made by movie characters since I revisited the Friday the 13th franchise last summer, yet, Compliance's characters are purportedly based on real people who made real life stupid/criminal decisions. How could these people be so bloody stupid, you ask? After watching Life of Pi, you should have the answer you were looking for. It might also explain why so many of us bought the "They hate us for our freedom" line.
With the exception of Oliver Stone's ten-part mini-series The Untold History of the United States, no two films from 2012 do a better job at depicting what's wrong with the world today, than Craig Zobel's Compliance and Ang Lee's Life of Pi. Like the perfect wine pairing, these films should be watched back-to-back to bring out each one's full spectrum of flavor and insight. Don't make the mistake I did of watching Compliance first, better yet, save it for the second course -- a dish that will cool your palate after choking down Lee's turd-warm appetizer.
The Life of Pi is a story achingly familiar, not for the subject matter itself, but in the way it is presented to us -- this is a cozy narrative formula audiences have gobbled up for decades, and based on Pi's critical reception it seems to be a taste no one is tiring of. Like Forrest Gump and countless other epic Hollywood yarns, Pi takes you on a magical, moral journey, a fiction tethered to the present in wholly unnecessary bouts of present-day exposition (presumably for those in the audience not paying strict attention). We are witness to the exotic and fantastic voyage of yesteryear by our humble narrator, told in CG-rich flashbacks, all in the name of getting the empty vessel of the aspiring writer (aka the audience) to a point where God is accepted. Unfortunately, this leap of faith comes after a Shaggy Dog twist reveals to us that the primrose path we've been led down, was in fact tended with manure. But fear not, since our heroic narrator has taken the initiative of convincing us the true story is so horrible, we will blithely prefer the flowery fiction he himself has succumbed to, so long ago. The last few times I remember a Hollywood film attempting to convince me fiction was preferable to reality was Tim Burton's Big Fish and Jeremy Leven's Don Juan De Marco. Perhaps I can forgive these two films for selling me on love and compassion, but Pi is selling us God...an entirely different can of worms.
If after being misled for two plus hours you're still not sold on "God" then you might be asking yourself: why exactly would the story of a tiger on a boat really be better than the gritty realist drama of four desperate humans on a lifeboat? I suppose the answer to why so many would prefer fiction over fact is perfectly presented in the hard to watch "Inspired by True Events" Compliance. When a complete stranger calls and tells you he's a police officer, then you'd probably do whatever you were told to do, right? Even if this cop was pushing you to commit sexual assault, rape, etc.? I can't remember being more frustrated by poor decisions made by movie characters since I revisited the Friday the 13th franchise last summer, yet, Compliance's characters are purportedly based on real people who made real life stupid/criminal decisions. How could these people be so bloody stupid, you ask? After watching Life of Pi, you should have the answer you were looking for. It might also explain why so many of us bought the "They hate us for our freedom" line.