Life of Pi

Directed by the Oscar-winning director of Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee and Based on Yann Martel’s bestselling Mann Booker Prize winning 2001 novel, Life of Pi (Which is on my list of novels to read) has been described as is a Magnificent and moving film which starts with adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) recounting the incredible experiences he had as a boy (Suraj Sharma) after his zookeeper parents (Adil Hussain and Tabu) decide to leave the serenity of their lives in Pondicherry, India, and board a ship travelling to Canada in order to start a new life.

Unfortunately the ship goes down drowning everyone except Pi (Suraj Sharma), a zebra, an orang utan, a shrieking hyena and the tiger named Richard Parker which is named after the hunter who captured him. Needless to say Pi’s journey is perilous and Pi, who claims to be Hindu, Christian and Muslim, finds his faith severely tested when the ship goes down and he finds himself Sharing one lifeboat for 227 days at sea with a starving Bengal tiger. This reminds Pi of The maxim “survival of the fittest” and the mistake of treating a wild animal as human. So he leaves Richard Parker alone on the lifeboat & fends for himself on a raft he ties alongside.

Suraj Sharma uses his expressive eyes to good effect, hinting at the brutal extent of the torment he is going through whilst trapped at sea. The film also stars Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu and was scripted by David Magee (Finding Neverland), with cinematography by Claudio Miranda.