I've been wanting to write something about life of pi for quite some times now. But I keep struggling to write anything meaningful. I don't know why. This is very frustrating. The initial problem was reading, I simply could not read anything. I was critical of almost everything I read, or I would put a label on the material and abandon it. This tendency now spreads to my writing too. I lost my tongue so I could not speak; I lost my heart so I could read; I am afraid I am losing my mind so writing as my only expression would be lost too.
Anyway, it's another attempt to write down some thoughts about the movie, life of pi.
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I forgot when was the first time I saw a book titled, life of pi. It could be a book with tiger's tail as a cover which was put on a special book shelf. It was probably two years ago. I checked out the book from library for I like cat, I have cats as pet. I could not finished the book. In memory, I only flipped through first page and set aside until its due date, even past the due date. The weird names of characters in the book turned me off, I think, at least, it's one of the reason. The other reason was that I started to have difficulty focusing on reading...
Then I think it was a year ago, I noticed that Ang Lee is going to direct. I started to be interested again. But according to conventional wisdom, original book will always be better than any movie adoption. So I thought to myself, that before watching the movies, I should give the book another go. And I like cats, big or small. I tried to find the book with tiger tail cover, it was kind upset that I could not find it. The library catalog showed many copies at teen section, so I asked the circulation desk where the teen section is. When the circulation lady saw "life of pi", she said her daughter was going to read the book before the movie came out. I was delighted, somehow felt a connection with people I guess, and said that it's my purpose as well.
It is weird that I finished reading the book. The book I got had a blue cover with a boat, with a tiger and a boy lying in the boat and different fishes swim below the surface. I liked the old cover better. But this will do too. The story started funny with main character's view and experience on religion and zoology. But the chapters were fragmented, with main character's view, and an interviewer's description. It was a strange setup. I remembered I probably jumped some interviewer's sections. I had no patient to read some nonsensical chapters, which was confusing without the second part of the book. After I finished the book, all I can remember about it were two things. One was funny and hilarious early childhood religious experience, with some fun zoo story as well. The other was the hardship of the second chapter. I felt the struggle of a ship wrecker's lonely sea life. There were still funny paragraphs, but the difficult life was always behind those scenes. The ending was particularly disastrous to me. It left me hanging. And I hate being stuck in between. I felt hesitate to watch the film. In addition, I am not specially fond of Ang Lee's films.
The film started in USA on Nov 21, 2012. I did not attend the theater until February. And it was by accident, not by design. My mom went to Mainland China, and my sister was asking me what I was going to do that day. I simply had no plan, although life of pi was floating in my mind. Simply because I think it's going out of the theater soon. So I slipped my tongue and said I was going to watch life of pi. My sister immediately said she wanted to go as well and asked her husband. That was a blue sky, sunny day. On the way to the theater, I regretted a little bit. It's a day to be outside absorbing sunlight...
I bought a small popcorn, which was big to me. And my brother in law wondered why I bought it. He just read that those theater popcorn had something nasty in them, bad for the health. I hadn't had those for I don't know how long, one should be okay.
Life of Pi was a 3D movie. It was gorgeous. I liked it a lot. When my mom came back from Mainland China, I wanted her to watch it too. But after another two weeks wait, there was only one theater had it for an morning hour. When I literally gave up, I checked schedule again a week ago. Lo and behold, that theater increased the showing time for life of pi, it was in a more favorable time slots too. So I watched the movie the second time. And I still liked it a lot. I kept pondering the reason for it.
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