There are stories that when you try to explain them you feel like they lose their meaning, “Life of Pi” is one of these and when I find myself talking about cinema and saying that this is definitely one of my favorite films, I often hear people ask me “What do you think this film is about, what is the truth compared to the facts, which story is true, the one where there are animals or the one where there are only human beings”? The first time I saw this film I didn’t ask myself this question and not even all the other times.
Art in general has the extraordinary ability to speak through images, a bit like dreams do. Nothing is almost never as it seems and the sensations they leave are always to be found in the deepest part of ourselves, as well as their meaning.
In these few lines I would like to try for the first time to tell what has always moved me inside this film.
The story tells of an Indian boy (Pi) left at sea on a boat after a violent shipwreck, in the company of a Bengal tiger (Richard Parker).
After countless events, Pi first tried to survive the tiger and not be devoured by it and then established a friendship with it that actually kept him alive until the end.
The same tiger that initially scared him and from which he thought he had to defend himself, eventually became the main reason for surviving, together.
It must be at this point in the story that Richard Parker, for me, took on the appearance of the fears of a young boy who, faced with his own choices, his relationships, life in general, was struggling to find the strength to always go further and be strong, sure of himself.
I always cry a lot in the final scene of the film where just when everything seems lost, the two castaways land on an island, both alive and about to say goodbye forever.
Many people (including me) have had to and wanted to leave important situations that have given you so much, enriched you, made you angry, argued about and that you know you want to keep inside you forever.
If I had to answer the question posed at the beginning, I would say this:
if only humans are present in the story, Richard Parker and Pi are the same thing and when the tiger goes away into the forest without looking back, it is a part of Pi, it is his fears that vanish forever, his experiences that go away, generating great sadness in Pi, because even separating from a part of ourselves, from something or someone in which we have invested time, energy and interest, causes suffering, sends into crisis and everything must be faced by taking the right time;
if in the story Pi is the Indian boy and the tiger is Richard Parker, the boy faces with great pain the slow movement he witnesses the tiger make while, without turning around, it disappears forever into the jungle.
However we want to put it, this is a film that speaks of “Separation”; life is a continuous act of separation (to steal the words from the film).
Sometimes we have to separate ourselves from things of ours that, evolving, change us and sometimes we have to separate ourselves from people and situations because we choose other paths. We only hope that we can do it with the same love we felt when we were still on the same path.
I know someone might ask anyway, “why doesn’t Richard Parker turn around after pausing for a moment before leaving?”
I tried to give myself an answer; maybe when we are truly certain of taking a different path we don’t need to look back to see what we are leaving behind because if we try to do this separation well, even when leaving, we will keep all the beauty inside us. It is there, inside us, that we will always find it.
Maybe I remain of the idea that it is not important to find a rational logic: whether it is Richard Parker who leaves or Pi himself who changes his path, what really matters is to understand and always find a way to say the right goodbye.
Tomorrow is the beginning of a new summer; may it always be a new summer, tomorrow.
Valeria Verna
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