This evening I went with my family after doing presents and eating Christmas dinner to see Life of Pi in 3D at the AMC Loews in Downtown Boston, a film I'd read about based on a book people had told me about but which I'd never read, and I'm still processing the experience.
As a non religious person it spoke to me deeply about the meaning and level of importance in people's lives and how it helps them comprehend and accept both the beauty and the brutality of the natural world and the human experience.
And... I don't know, I can't summarize the themes of the film any more meaningfully than Ang Lee's images, especially experienced in 3D in a crowded theatre full of people. So if you can before it's pushed out completely from theaters try and see the film, OK? I can't speak for the book, but I can speak for Ang Lee as a film maker of great poetry, the film as one of the most effective blendings of real life visuals and special effects I've encountered, and the central performance as perhaps my favorite film performance so far this year (allowing that I haven't seen Lincoln and apparently Daniel Day Lewis is a great actor, but I think we all already knew that).
For it's immersive and striking use of 3D to develop a compelling story as told by a recognized film maker an immediate comparison that comes to mind is Hugo, Martin Scorceses' film from last year and also his first foray into 3D and one of the first films after Avatar that people went around seeing it was enhanced the experience to see it in that format. Except for me, Hugo was completely artificial, from it's visuals which were completely computer animated to it's performances and it's sentiment it felt calculated to the point of maudlin inauthenticity compared to Life of Pi. And mind you, Hugo is a different film with a very different message and is fundamentally supposed to be the film maker's love letter to the art of film making or whatever it was I read in reviews of the film and am parroting back.
But Life of Pi for me spoke to the depth of the human experience, and the search for meaning against a back drop of brutality, beauty and the omni present drive to survive whatever horrible things transpire. And ultimately the film for me was about the role of religion and mythology in making the harsh discordance of our experiences palatable and understandable.
Which again, as a non religious person, really spoke to me. Especially because, repeating myself, being a non religious person that's something I don't get or understand... being able to place your total faith in a power greater than yourself or in the idea that a power greater than you or your conception exists and entering into rituals that reaffirm that feeling and it being the fundamental thing from which you draw meaning or the power to go on living or whatever the purpose religion serves for any individual. It's super foreign to me. But unlike some religious people who may disdain it or find it distasteful... I enjoy seeing an instance of this wherein it's celebrated with such beauty and sensitivity, and it reminds me of the argument I always want to articulate in favor of religion that being that it's inspired so much art work of incredible, breath taking beauty.
I mean, right? Come on other atheists, Handel's messiah? The sistene chapel? Examples of spiritually informed art not from Western Culture... uh, the pyramids! That's something! Buddhist art too! Yeah, all incredible works of art the experience of which has enriched the human experience for literally countless lives across generations, you have to admit that's worthwhile. And even if religion is a source for a lot of problems, it can be a worth while lens through which to consider the world even if it's foreign to you or you've chosen to distance yourself from it because it was the lens through which so, so much of the human experience has been considered through out human history, right?
As an atheist trying to understanding the role and the experience of religion, I can have faith in at least that much.
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