Life of Pi
Feb. 9th, 2014 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOverall
I finally saw the film of Life of Pi.
It was indeed very beautiful.
I am interested in the book, it seems to have had more on the philosophy, but I'm not sure if I want to read it.
Random comments
It's nice to see another film using 3D to try to convey something artistic, rather than just "OMG Sharks!" (although I watched the DVD so the 3D scenes were a bit wasted).
One comment I made was that "love" may or may not be a measure of a "soul", but I think animals totally experience love, just maybe not cats so much :) Although it seems to me in the film the tiger never showed much affection when they were in the boat, other than not eating him, so I'm not surprised it ran off, but I'm not sure if it was *supposed* to show affection, but that just wasn't clear, or if the affection was supposed to be only in the mind of Pi and the viewer (which would make a lot of sense).
I like the idea of multiple religions. It's something I've often thought, but rarely seen suggested.
"Which story do you prefer"
The message at the end seemed to be "You should absolutely believe this story, just don't think it's true." That's a message which I like about many things. E.g. "it will turn out OK in the end" may sometimes be a good message for soldiering on, if giving up can't help. Or e.g. "Sam responded to a phishing email and lost all his/her money", whether or not it's true, not responding to phishing emails is a good idea.
And I think it's a case where the inconsistency of human brains can work for you: eg. keep at the back of your mind what you really want, but most of the time, just construct a narrative which is effective, not necessarily true.
The danger is if the narrative also leads you to do/think things which are turn out badly. E.g. you keep trying when you should give up, because you think it will always turn out ok. Or e.g. you think phishing emails are much more dangerous than they actually are.
But Life of Pi suggests that message applies, at least for Pi, to believing in God. I feel quite conflicted about that. On the one hand, I think there may *be* many benefits of pretending to believe in God, even if you don't think it's factually true as such. On the other hand (a) it seems offensive to many people who think it *is* factually true to say "it's not true but I'm going to believe it anyway", it seems like not taking what they say seriously and (b) I think there are also many risks of thinking it's true if it actually isn't.
I finally saw the film of Life of Pi.
It was indeed very beautiful.
I am interested in the book, it seems to have had more on the philosophy, but I'm not sure if I want to read it.
Random comments
It's nice to see another film using 3D to try to convey something artistic, rather than just "OMG Sharks!" (although I watched the DVD so the 3D scenes were a bit wasted).
One comment I made was that "love" may or may not be a measure of a "soul", but I think animals totally experience love, just maybe not cats so much :) Although it seems to me in the film the tiger never showed much affection when they were in the boat, other than not eating him, so I'm not surprised it ran off, but I'm not sure if it was *supposed* to show affection, but that just wasn't clear, or if the affection was supposed to be only in the mind of Pi and the viewer (which would make a lot of sense).
I like the idea of multiple religions. It's something I've often thought, but rarely seen suggested.
"Which story do you prefer"
The message at the end seemed to be "You should absolutely believe this story, just don't think it's true." That's a message which I like about many things. E.g. "it will turn out OK in the end" may sometimes be a good message for soldiering on, if giving up can't help. Or e.g. "Sam responded to a phishing email and lost all his/her money", whether or not it's true, not responding to phishing emails is a good idea.
And I think it's a case where the inconsistency of human brains can work for you: eg. keep at the back of your mind what you really want, but most of the time, just construct a narrative which is effective, not necessarily true.
The danger is if the narrative also leads you to do/think things which are turn out badly. E.g. you keep trying when you should give up, because you think it will always turn out ok. Or e.g. you think phishing emails are much more dangerous than they actually are.
But Life of Pi suggests that message applies, at least for Pi, to believing in God. I feel quite conflicted about that. On the one hand, I think there may *be* many benefits of pretending to believe in God, even if you don't think it's factually true as such. On the other hand (a) it seems offensive to many people who think it *is* factually true to say "it's not true but I'm going to believe it anyway", it seems like not taking what they say seriously and (b) I think there are also many risks of thinking it's true if it actually isn't.