Let's talk about Pi.

It's not every day you find the compulsion to splash the cash on a play you like, or a concert you want to catch. We tend to blame it on too little cash or time. So there will be times we make do with a movie at our neighborhood theater to satisfy our need for some art in our lives.

And that's fine. Nothing wrong with spending $9.50 to watch Les Miserables when you'd otherwise have to spend $95, or more, to catch the same production live and on stage. Granted, the experience is different, but the story gets told. Better yet, if it stirs you enough to want to watch it live some time in your life, then the movie has done its job right?

So what movie should you watch? Or affordable (read: cheap) plays to catch? Or free concerts to attend? That's where I come in. Each week, as you log in to this blog, you'll find one of my pithy recommendations waiting--whether you agree with my assessment or not, I'll leave that decision to you.

Roger Ebert, may he rest in peace, I may not be, but there should still be some food for thought deposited here for your reading pleasure.

This month, let's turn our focus on Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi and the subsequent silver screen retelling by Ang Lee, the Taiwanese auteur who won an Academy Award for Best Director for his efforts this year.

I must admit, when the book was first released here in 2001, I didn't give it much thought. "A boy on a life raft with a huge tiger, really?" went through my mind as I gave the book cover a cursory look-through before moving on to other more interesting fare.  It turns out I was the one who missed out on a good yarn after all. But enough about me.

The overarching theme of Life of Pi is about faith--faith in terms of religion, and ultimately in the people around us. After all, it takes faith to stay alive on lifeboat for an indeterminate length of time, but more of that later.

A snapshot of faith was represented in this dialogue between the unknown Canadian author, played by Rafe Spall, and the philosophy teacher Piscine Militor Patel, represented ably by Irrfan Khan (stop scratching your heads. Yes, he's the police inspector in Slumdog Millionaire), at the start of a meal.

Spall: "I didn't know Hindus said 'Amen'".

Khan: "Catholic Hindus do."

Spall: "Catholic Hindus?"

Khan: "We get to feel guilty in front of hundreds of gods, instead of just one."

In another quick-fire conversation between the two characters,

Khan: "Faith is a house with many rooms"

Spall: "And no room for doubt?"

Khan: "Oh, plenty, on every floor. Doubt is useful. It keeps faith a living thing. After all you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is being tested."

And tested it was. The Japanese cargo ship Patel and his family and their zoo took to migrate to Canada met with a huge storm and capsized. By a quirk of fortune, only he survived together with a zebra, a hyena, a female orang-utan and a gigantic Bengal tiger called Richard Parker onboard the life raft.

What followed were scenes of the teenage Patel, played by Suraj Sharma, driven to despair--first by the loss of his family and life as he knew it, then by the struggles and subsequent deaths of the zebra, orang-utan and hyena.

Credit: Fox/Official site of Life of Pi

The Bengal tiger Richard Parker subsequently took over to play a dominating presence during the time when Patel was shipwrecked, at once aloof yet demanding and never wanting to share the boat--and its resources--with the poor young man.

Then when all seemed lost, Patel and Richard Parker found land in what appeared to be a life-giving island filled with fresh water, abundant food and no inhabitants. I shan't spoil the movie for you at this point, but suffice to say, the island was not what it seemed.

If all I've told you so far left you incredulous, imagine the surprise felt by the two Japanese insurance executives, who were sent out from Japan to Mexico where Patel was eventually found and nursed back to health in.

So incredulous, in fact, that they asked Patel to tell them another story, a simpler one, so that they can report back to the company without "looking like fools". Tell us "the truth", as one of them implored.

Again, not wanting to give away the plot too much, the second story Patel told was short, brutal and a survival-of-the-fittest recounting without any animals involved. It made for a less charming account of his 227 days floating around the Pacific Ocean.

Faith and spirituality came full circle then, when the older, wiser Patel asked the unknown Canadian author which story he preferred now that he heard both accounts.

Spall, after a pause, said: "The one with the tiger. That's the better story."

Patel replied: "Thank you. And so it goes with God."

The author told Patel early on in the movie that he sought him out because he wanted to hear the "story that would make him believe in God".

If you're looking for such a story, with a twist in the tale not seen since M. Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense, then I recommend you either make a beeline to the nearest bookstore and grab a copy of Martel's novel, or fire up your movie app and check the movie listings for the next screening of Ang Lee's cinematic masterpiece. 

To whet your appetite further, you can check out what Martel and Lee had to say about surmounting the different challenges to get this film made in this YouTube clip: