Life of Pi

How this film uses it

The film gives you 2 versions of the same survival story, one with a tiger and one with only humans. Then it asks which story you prefer. Your choice between them is the last and most important thing that happens in the film.

Where to see it

The Japanese insurance agents being offered the alternative story, which is the brutal human version. The film holds on them as they decide which story to write in their report.

How this film uses it

The adult Pi tells the story of the shipwreck and his survival at sea to a writer in the present. Because he is looking back, the fantastical ocean sequences feel like memory. In the gap between the older narrator and the young hero, you sense what surviving cost him.

Where to see it

Adult Pi watching the writer's face as he decides which version of the story to believe. It is the final scene of the present-day framing story, and you are making the same decision as the writer.

How this film uses it

Richard Parker is almost entirely CGI, meaning computer-generated imagery. What impresses is how specific the tiger's behavior, weight, fur and breath are. In any scene that matters, you forget to ask whether it is real.

Where to see it

Richard Parker jumping into the sea to hunt fish and swimming back toward the lifeboat. The CGI water and the CGI tiger are blended with the live-action Suraj Sharma so realistically that you believe in the bond between boy and tiger.

How this film uses it

Claudio Miranda shoots ocean sequences full of bioluminescence, which is light made by living creatures. At night, the Pacific turns into a mirror, lit from below by glowing animals. The survival story ends up looking like something between a documentary and a myth. The ocean feels alive, with a light of its own.

Where to see it

The bioluminescent whale surfacing at night. The Pacific becomes a mirror of light. The tiger and the boy witness something that no survival documentary has ever photographed.