Life of Pi – Scene Notes

Resource Description

Scene Notes on Life of Pi

Merit And Cultural Significance

Directed by Ang Lee, who has won the Academy Award for best director twice, The Life of Pi is based on Yann Martel’s 2001 Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name. The film has had critical and commercial success, receiving 11 nominations for the 85th Academy Awards and being awarded Best Picture for 2012 by the Las Vegas Film Critics Society. Set in the tumultuous political times of 1975 in India, referred to as the ‘Emergency’, the film transports the viewer to the colourful world of former French colony Pondicherry in Southern India. The protagonist, Pi, challenges the viewer to consider philosophically a number of world religions.

Needs And Interests Of Students

Students will be engaged by the intriguing allegorical storytelling of two narrators who blend fact with fiction. The central narrator Pi, who is shipwrecked and alone with four animals, demonstrates the importance of faith, hope and perseverance. The film explores the moral dilemma of the fight for survival and Pi’s spiritual quest for truth and meaning. During Pi’s remarkable 227-day ordeal with a hungry Bengal tiger, he questions himself, God and life. The spectacular cinematography, mystic realism and ambiguous ending of the film invoke a mystical quality that will produce a range of emotive responses in viewers, as well as make them consider how individuals need to find their inner strength.