When I saw this trailer while watching Cloud Atlas, I knew, I would go to watch it in 3D, because of these amazing pictures.
More than a week ago I went to the cinema and saw Life of Pi. I was not disappointed and so I really do recommend you to watch this movie. But do me a favor and watch it in cinema and not on a tiny screen. The effects are a stunning and it is really one of those films where a big screen really makes the difference. Besides that the story gave me a nice feeling. So go out and watch it.
If you have seen it by now, go ahead and read this text. If not, stop here and come back later, because I am going to SPOILER from now on.

 

1. What they really made very well, is the trailer. They made it so well, that Philipp did not want to see this movie at first. Why is that a good thing? Let me explain it to you. The trailer does focus one key point of the movie and that is the pictures you will see. There is scene where a whale is coming out of the lightning ocean at night. And another where you see Pi standing on the orange sea in the morning. There are also several really good shots of animals and Richard Parker, the tiger. The focus is not as much on the story as it is on the visuals. That , for me, was a good thing. The story actually is not just about a guy surviving on a little boat out in the ocean in the company of a tiger. It is about love, god and how you deal with your life. None of these is really mentioned in the trailer. I have not read the book, so I did not know about the end. That was great. So I could really enjoy the movie and the whole turn around in the end. There was not even a hint, that the story would be so mindblowing. Furthermore the whole part about god was not placed as heavily into the trailer as into the movie. That also gave the movie more power because the feelings could develop through the story.
I watched the trailer several times before watching the movie and nevertheless the movie got me. Although there is this moment in the trailer, when Richard Parker is seen on the boat the first time, it scared me a second time seeing it in the cinema. The reason for that is, that the scene happens at another time.
And despite that the trailer depending so heavily on the visual part of the movie there are so much more great scenes that you have not seen before. And of course the whole changing ratio aspect is very great.

2. The story kicked me. It took me nearly two days until I wanted to watch something else. The whole time I was surrounded by a warm feeling, that I did not want to destoy with another motion picture. I tried to find articles and discussions about the movie and its story on the internet. So I really liked it, although I did not visit the cinema for the story in the first place.

3. When I saw the flower on the island, which contained the teeth, I thought about the dance of Pi’s girl in India. There it is said that there is a Lotus flower in a forest. And Pi asks why it is there. So I thought, that this is the flower in the forest. That just popped into my head

4. There are great theories about the story and its ending, in which Richard Parker is god or as mentioned in the movie its Pi himself. But one point, I could not find, was something that I noticed. In the end Pi answers the question of the writer, if there is now a happy end. He does this by saying that the writer himself can decide, because the story now belongs to him. The author than looks into the notes of the two chinese and he reads that there is just the story of Pi and the tiger in the boat. Not the other one, where Pi was the tiger. Afterwards you see Pi introducing his happy family to the writer.
You can now point out, that the chinese also wanted to believe in the beautiful story with the tiger. But what I thought at first was, that from the point Pi gives the story to the writer, we see, what he wants us to see. And he wants the happy end. So he decides the tiger story should be the right story and so we see that one in the chinese notes. As far as I can remember Pi’s family is also introduced to us for the first time after the author read the notes. So that is also a part, for which the writer decided it should have an happy ending. But that is just something I thought about leaving the cinema. In the end the really great thing about the story is, that it wants you to believe the part you want to believe.

Now, I have written a very long text just to say, that Life of Pi is a great movie and you should see and talk about it. Because that is what it is made for.