{"id":6272,"date":"2013-03-13T15:29:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T19:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=3845"},"modified":"2017-06-05T23:01:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T03:01:34","slug":"life-of-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6272","title":{"rendered":"Life of Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The tiger is REAL.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Knowing nothing about Yann Martel\u2019s popular novel nor the film is probably the best way to see Ang Lee\u2019s film of Life of Pi<\/strong> \u2013 which I did, and which probably makes me someone who\u2019s been living under a rock for the past year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen the book cover, heard of the title, listened to the score, met the composer, and yet it took a while to catch the film, but it was wholly worth the wait because by living under said rock, there were no preconceived ideas of the film beyond a sense of its spirituality (gleaned from the score) and something about a boy and a tiger on a boat.<\/p>\n

The book and film have undoubtedly affected people in different ways, and one would think this amalgam of survival, fantasy, adventure, emotional horror, and spiritualism just shouldn\u2019t work, but it does because it seemed everyone managed to walk a very fine line in not making the film from a single (narrow-minded) vantage, and keeping a hard focus on the boy and the tiger. Having not read the book, the script nevertheless feels like a perfect adaptation because everything flows so neatly, yet without any portent of things to come. It also offers a unique finale that basically tells viewers it\u2019s okay to believe in one\u2019s own interpretation of the boy\u2019s epic ocean journey.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a film in which South Asians aren\u2019t portrayed as Hollywood caricatures, filled with mysticism and steeped in a staid culture. Within Pi\u2019s family, there is dialogue, differences, and conflict, and spiritualism isn\u2019t this thing that seeps from every word or scene; it\u2019s just a translucent cloud that once in a while deepens in colour and affects a scene with a specific narrative purpose rather than ethnic atmosphere or \u2018colour,\u2019 which is important considering Hollywood like to portray Things Asian and Things South Asian as all murky, mystical, and really, really old.<\/p>\n

Pi\u2019s family is clearly upscale and influenced by the colonial power of the time (France<\/em> \u2013 which seems weird, considering the bulk of the Indian provinces were manhandled by the Brits) but they maintain a life that\u2019s progressive and spiritual, liberal with conservative elements \u2013 perhaps a glaringly modern take by the author rather than a slice of the times \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t take away from the Indian character.<\/p>\n

Some might see a rather white version of the culture from that era \/ time period \/ setting, but I kind of see my dad and his family who share a lot of the same values. Being the son of a stubborn, sometimes argumentative black sheep with a Germamic fixation, the world of Pi isn\u2019t an aberration or a fantasy, but a believable portrait of a normal family \u2013 things rather rare when Hollywood dips into foreign cultures.<\/p>\n

Uploaded is a review of the film<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 I only had access to the DVD, which was a bummer \u2013 plus a review of Mychael Danna\u2019s Oscar-winning score<\/a>\u00a0from Sony Classical, and an interview with Rob Simonsen<\/a>, who\u2019s moved up from Danna\u2019s assistant to a collaborator on scores like 500 Days of Summer<\/strong>, TV\u2019s Dollhouse<\/strong>, and Life of Pi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the podcast, Simonsen discusses his entry into film scoring, learning the ropes from Danna, and the business realities of a working composer. Those wanting some direct info from Danna won\u2019t find a shortage of online interviews, but I\u2019d suggest this CBC interview<\/a> where Danna converses with Jian Ghomeshi, and a print piece in the Ottawa Citizen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Released this week by Fox on DVD and Blu-ray is Ang Lee’s film version of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, so I’ve uplaoded a film review, a CD review of Mychael Danna’s Oscar-winning score, and a podcast interview with Danna’s assistant and collaborator, up-and-coming composer Rob Simonsen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,4,5,11],"tags":[1920,1917,1918,1919,1924],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Da","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16141,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6272\/revisions\/16141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}