"Life of Pi" (forgive me for not using the translation that I think is misleading) is a magical movie. Say it is magical because it has a strong staying power for me.
When I just watched the movie, I didn't think it was such a great or perfect work. Perhaps it is because I have read the original book, have some specific movie expectations, and understand the basic plot and the final reversal. I think Ang Lee just filmed the story in its entirety. "No work and no demerits, satisfactory", this is my first evaluation.
However, in the days after that, many details in the film still linger in front of my mind. The film is like a glass of good old wine, after being in the belly, it gradually releases its intoxicating charm. This is very different from most popcorn blockbusters that are cool when you watch them and forget them after you watch them.
I found the original and read it again. Therefore, I discovered the addition and subtraction of this text by Ang Lee on the basis of respecting the original work. The more I think and the more I think, the more I feel that Ang Lee is not just retelling this text with images; he has systematically constructed another text based on thorough understanding and thorough thinking, after careful selection and strict control. A "produced by Ang Lee".
In the process of transforming text into images, Ang Lee did much more subtraction than addition; of course this was due to the limitation of the length of the film, but it was not very important to Ang Lee. As we all know, the director is best at choosing a short story or a novella and lyrically expanding it into a human epic, such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", such as "Broken Arm Mountain", such as "Lust Caution" ; But to make a long story into a movie, it seems that there was only one attempt at "Sense and Emotion" before.
What's more, "Life of Pi" is different from "Sense and Emotion", and is different from most novels suitable for making movies. It is not a text with a strong story. The book is divided into three parts, and there are obvious gaps between them. The first part is too preaching, the second part is too fantasy, and the third part is too written. No wonder some critics believe that this is a novel that cannot be made into a movie.
However, Ang Lee made it.
For many readers, the first part of this wonderful novel is really ugly. In addition to the remarkable part of the zoo, the protagonist Pi's search for the three major religions is lengthy and lacking in interest. Ang Lee clearly knows this too. He removed the explanations of religious doctrines in the original book, as well as the ordinary process of communication between the teenager and the three religious teachers.
But if Ang Lee made a big deal with the first part just because of the length of the film, he would have been underestimated. Because he not only did a lot of subtractions, but also made some eye-catching additions. Some additions may just add interest to the film. For example, the teenager wrote the value of π silently on the blackboard, such as "You must be thirsty" when the pastor first met (this slogan has been pointed out by many people); but other additions, Obviously the result of careful consideration.
The most obvious example is the object of the first love. There is no such girl in the original book; obviously, Ang Lee joined this character to convey some important information for him. When we watched the entire movie, we found that the main role of the plot related to this girl is to bring in some Hindu and cultural elements-those dances (the dance teacher specifically pointed out that these dances are dedicated to the gods), the gestures (Lotus in the forest), the red thread. Those elements correspond one-to-one in the presentation of the mysterious island in the later part of the film.
There is another very important one. When the teenager and the girl separated, the middle-aged Pi's narration appeared: "I remember all the details of that day, but strangely, I don't remember how we said goodbye."-Why this sentence is important, later Reconsideration.
In the violent storm, the cargo ship sank, one man and one tiger, the good show opened.
In the original book, after discovering that Richard Parker was on the lifeboat, the young man was panicked. He listed one, two, three, four and six ways to kill a tiger, such as killing him with six morphine syringes, strangling him, and poisoning him. It, burned it, and realized that none of these methods worked, so I had no choice but to accept the seventh plan: let it live.
Let's imagine that if we encounter directors like Quentin, the "killing tiger plan" imagined by these protagonists will have a series of video expressions. That expression will be very vivid, wonderful, and comedic. But Ang Lee did not do that. In the film, the protagonist knows that the tiger is on board from the beginning. He saw the tiger swimming and struggling in the sea, chanting its name, and then witnessed the other person jump into the cabin. After the tiger reappeared and cleanly eliminated the hyena, Pi didn't seem to have considered killing the other side. Not only that, when the tiger was on the side of the ship and his life was hanging by a thread, he chose to save it aboard after a short period of hesitation, rather than get rid of it once and for all.
In the original book, the tiger’s existence is a helpless reality; in the film, the tiger’s existence is an active choice. In the original book, it is a threat to life; in the film, it is another living life.
Now that we have accepted the existence of tigers, the next question is, how do humans and tigers coexist?
In the original book, the author used a lot of space to describe the long process of tame the tiger by the teenager who grew up in the zoo. He finally established his authority by feeding, blowing whistle, making seasickness, playing with tiger feces, and many other methods, and finally established his authority and successfully grabbed a piece of land on the lifeboat.
In the film, the so-called "taming" is just a short episode. Three steps were easily destroyed by a hot pee. The embarrassed protagonist then gave up his plan to "tame"; during most of the time he drifted at sea, he stayed on his self-made raft and gave up the entire lifeboat to the tiger.
Tiger's pee shot at the teenager can be regarded as a light joke played by Ang Lee to the novel author; what is revealed in it is the different attitudes of Eastern and Western civilizations towards "nature". In the eyes of Westerners, nature is an object that can be conquered, tamed, and transformed; in the eyes of Easterners, that's mission impossible.
Ang Lee did not deliberately show how to hunt for food. Those passages in the original book that I read most with gusto—such as how to fish and kill and eat a large turtle, such as the desperate fight between a tiger and a shark—Lee didn’t even film it. This may be the root cause of my disappointment when I just watched the movie; in my original expectation and imagination, those should be rich and colorful visual spectacles.
However, Ang Lee did not shoot like that.
In fact, all the bloody, violent, and cruel content in the original work was resolutely avoided or downplayed by Li An. He took pictures of his father’s cruel education to Pi, but did not take pictures of how the tiger killed the goat; he showed the hyena’s attack on the zebra as a silhouette under the night sky, instead of restoring the horrible description in the book ( That's too sad); he did not give clear close-ups of the orangutan whose head was bitten off, nor did he photograph the decay of the animal carcasses in the cabin; he did not show the innocence of how Pi had repented from killing a fish for a long time The teenager quickly transformed into a skilled predator, but only took some dried fish dried in the sun as a background account... Until the end of the film, Pi on the hospital bed slowly told another version of the story. The director can fully supplement this narration with video explanations to achieve a more shocking effect (and not to waste a good actor like Gérard Depardieu); but no (I even suspect that he actually did it, but in the end Did not cut in). Not only that, the second story was so concise that many viewers were arguing whether Pi's mother was eaten by the chef or the shark; and in the original book, how did those people die? There are very clear explanations about what happens after death.
Why did Ang Lee do this? Is it just because he is "soft-hearted"? I do not think so. Although Li Ang looks so gentle and elegant, his ability to shoot "Lust Caution" has confirmed his ambition and ability to portray the ultimate. He can shoot sex so dangerously, and naturally he can show violence to the fullest.
So why? Going back to the very important sentence I just said, the protagonist's narration: I remember all the details of that day, but strangely, I don't remember how we said goodbye.
The reason is that those cruel truths, those violent scenes, and those bloody pictures have been selectively forgotten by the protagonist. Because, whether it is the young Pi who tells stories to Japanese company employees, or the middle-aged Pi who tells stories to writers, they are no longer accompanied by the Tigers.
The film has an important abridgement to the original work. In the original book, when the young Pi was drifting for a long time and was exhausted, he was blind and desperate. In the darkness of the apocalypse, he miraculously encountered another person floating on the lifeboat on the vast sea, and had a conversation with ambiguity and logic confusion. As the two lifeboats got closer and closer, Richard Parker jumped into the ship and ate the man, "He gave me a life, my own life, but the price was to take one life." "At that moment, Something in my heart is dead and never resurrected."
This content occupies 20 pages in the whole book, but it was cut all by Li Ang mercilessly. I guess that one of the important reasons is technical, because the art of film as an image, it is almost impossible to express the scene and artistic conception of two blind people talking at sea.
However, this text has a very crucial role in the original work. As a reader, it is often when I read this passage that I begin to doubt the authenticity of this story. It is too dreamy, too weird, too impossible to be "real", and it contrasts sharply with the previous paragraphs that are unreasonable but full of specific details. Those words are like disturbing sounds, which alert you in your sleep. You are not awake yet, but you realize that you are probably dreaming. Needless to say, the words and sentences in the dialogue are full of metaphors. When you read the complete book and then reread this paragraph, their meaning will appear one by one.
Ang Lee deleted this plot, but he used other means to complete the role of this text. Through a large number of dreamy and distorted images—the jellyfish that illuminate the sea, the giant whale that jumps out of the water, the boats close by, and the calm ocean—the audience faintly perceives the fictionality of the story. As for the presentation of metaphors, Ang Lee has spared no effort, from throwing away the fruit that looks like a lotus, to the mysterious island floating on the water like a reclining Buddha. The fact is that the symbolic sense of the elements in the film is so strong that some viewers will analyze the film as "Inception".
However, Ang Lee’s deletion of this passage still caused problems: in the original book, whether in the first story (Pi ate some meat from a man who was killed by a tiger) or in the second story (Pi ate and killed him) In the chef), Pi eats people; in the film, it is unclear whether Pi is a cannibal. Is this adjustment good? I have reservations about this.
Whether it is a book or a movie, it is a very good, rare and good work. Comparing the two, the book is more vivid and detailed, and the chapter about the young Pi's use of various technical means to make a living is full of wit and imagination; while the film is more restrained, more beautiful, and more integrated and allegorical.
Both books and movies perfectly shape an unforgettable artistic image: Richard parker.
What does that tiger mean? There are different opinions, but they are not thorough. Ang Li simply said, "This can't be said." Yes, there is no way to say this, because it is a profound existence.
However, at the end of the article, I still want to try to talk about the "tiger" as I understand it. That is a kind of original motivation for survival, a kind of desire and power for living things to do their best in order to continue to live on the horizon of life. People who have been enlightened and socialized often do not realize the driving force of life; however, in the cruel forest law, in the ocean of death, life, as a small, fragile and limited existence, can burst out Strong, tough, and absolute power. In order to survive, one can disregard morality and abandon humanity, even if life is worse than death, even if the catastrophe is unstoppable.
This original motivation, the closest friend is nothing but fear—the fear of death, the fear of not being able to continue to live, and the fear of religion. There are thousands of religions in the world, but their fundamental intentions are exactly the same, they are all whitewashing of death, the imagination of the other side of the world, and the comfort of the dying. In this sense, the enemy of life is not only death, but also religion. This is why, when Pi as the existence of "humanity" shouted and witnessed miracles in the storm, the tiger shivered and completely transformed into "fear" itself; and also why, when Pi finally returned to the world-that is governed by the law In the world constructed by ethics, religion, and culture, the tiger walked away without looking back—but please note that he just went deep into the jungle and did not completely disappear. It is necessary to quote a passage that Li Ang said in an exclusive interview with Chai Jing: "I am very longing for religion, but I always have a tiger in my heart."
No matter whether the film can win an Oscar next year, this tiger will exist for a long time. .
View more about Life of Pi reviews
