I watched Life of Pi in 3D. I thought the visuals were very beautiful, but the message sillier than ever and the ending seemed to pull its punch compared to the novel. I made some cynical jokes about it on Google+.
I watched “Life of Pi” in 3D too. The message didn’t seem silly to me, I thought it was a really strong anti-religion piece and might even deconvert some people. Maybe we interpret the message differently?
I haven’t seen the movie, but Life of Pi is easily one of my favourite books. Of course it could never make anybody believe in God, but its brilliance is that theists (at least of a certain sort) can easily be led into thinking that it would. As a metaphor for religion, it is beautiful and accurate. It is perfectly clear what (in the framing fictional world) actually happened, and yet you know what most people (in that world or in this) are going to believe.
I only disliked the bit with the island. It was just too much, I thought; it gives the game away. But I was wrong. People choose to believe anyway! Preposterous but clung to: as I said, a perfect metaphor for theistic religion.
The book also makes it clear what it means to choose to believe in a false story, and I only hope that the movie does as well. That is how people are responding to it. Beautifully accurate. This is the best writing on religion that I have ever encountered.
I have niether read the novel nor watched the movie, but the tagline on the copy of the book that I briefly considered buying promised that it would “make you believe in God”; Whether this representative of the author’s actual intent, or just the marketing is unknown to me.
I think you came away with an entirely unintended view (by the filmmakers, and probably, although I’m not 100% sure, the novelist); if you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi it doesn’t seem like anyone quoted in it has any anti-religious point of view at all.
Which is not to say that you can’t extract a strong anti-religion message from the actual story! Doing so was in fact my first cynical joke (and a game we here have often played):
Life of Pi is a extended demonstration of the wondrous value of lying to yourself about the awful things you do to survive and how other people will abet even murder if they’re told a good story, and how this is all a metaphor for religion. Or something.
But… the protagonist pretty much says “V’ir frra naq qbar fbzr ubeevsvp guvatf, gura vairagrq n cerggl fgbel gb oybpx gurz bhg. Naq fb vg tbrf jvgu tbq: jura crbcyr oryvrir va tbq, gurl’er qbvat gur fnzr.” How can anyone consider this a pro-religion message? I guess I saw a really good anti-religion message while everyone else, including Obama, saw a pro-religion one.
How can anyone consider this a pro-religion message?
The pretty story could just be the narration itself, truthful or not; the true horror and suffering is not going to come through his narration, even if he tries to describe his thirst or boredom or fear of the tiger. As a counter-point, consider what we’re told repeatedly by the narrator of the frame story and IIRC Pi as well: that it’s a story which will make one believe in God. A story about cannibalism & murder with a cover-up lie to preserve one’s sanity isn’t really that sort of story.
I was under the impression that the frame story was supposed to convince you to believe in God, by presenting an argument that believing in God might be a lie but it’s useful to keep your sanity and the facts don’t matter anyway. The key phrase of the film, “and so it goes with God”, uttered in a depressing tone, refers to that. That’s the brilliance I saw in the film: in the space of one minute, it presents this rational case for the usefulness of belief, then turns around and shows you how hollow it is. No?
(Sorry if I’m kind of over-explaining the point here, I’m a bit sleepy)
Yes, that’s what I thought you meant. And as I said, I like this interpretation better since I think the case for believing in God because of the story is so weak that it forms a sort of reductio so that you believe the opposite (‘this is his best argument for believing in God—it’s only a slightly useful Noble Lie?’) But I don’t think this is how the author takes the ending, or what he believes. If you look at one of Wikipedia’s refs, this interview http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec02/martel_11-11.html—it comes off as your standard mushy-headed NOMA ecumenicalism. He talks about his own directionless life, admiring all religions, getting the idea in India, that sort of thing, and caps it off:
And it’s funny, I realize people who reject religion or are very cynical about it usually know just enough about a religion to be able to dismiss it. So they only know the exaggerations, the excesses of that religion. In a sense, what a lot of us do with Islam, we only notice the bad things about it. We don’t realize the good things that are happening with it. So now that I’ve suspended my cynicism, now that I’ve put aside my criticism let’s say of organized religion and gone to the texts, yes, I do see more of where they’re coming from.
To me, this makes the author sound like he’s… what’s that sarcastic phrase, ‘spiritual but not theistic’? If I had to guess, I think he put in the twist as a trap for the cynical and atheistic which lets them (us) think they’ve solved the story and reduced it down to dreary rationality (unweaved the rainbow) but which serves as an opportunity for the spiritual to affirm that they believe the tiger story and that believing is important even if not all the facts seem to fit (belief in belief).
I actually really liked Monster, but stopped watching because it was making my wife depressed. Oh well. In any case, if you are predisposed towards melancholy, you should avoid this one.
She should finish it, I think. The series negatively affected my mood at times. I could only bring myself to watch one to a few episodes per week ~ month, even. Stopping frequently, analysing assertions, and thinking about hard-to-process bits for long stretches at a time kept me occupied for the better part of more than a year. In the end it strengthened my ability to safely process uncomfortable ideas. Shortly after viewing the denouement ever-pervading thoughts about the series were silenced.
In brief, mental security may be better served by watching the series in its entirety; I think stopping mid-way a potentially worrying decision.
Only potentially, of course. She probably forgot about it already.
There’s a certain style of story in which things are relentlessly hopeless and depressing… until they aren’t. Once you start, not getting to the ending may not be a good idea. I haven’t seen Monster, though, so I don’t know if it’s one of these.
I believe Upotte!! to be the crappiest series I’ve ever watched to its full length(10 episodes), though from the 5th episode onwards I think I was only watching for the purpose of completion. Given it only a 4 in my anime list, and thought to give it a 3. And I speak as someone who doesn’t really mind the excessive fanservice-ness, which you named as your primary objection to it...
My own objections to it is that it doesn’t bother with world building, I couldn’t care about any of the characters, and it has no real story. One of the ultra-fanservicey scenes (gur sberfg cfrhqb-encr ol gung cflpubgvp tha/tvey) was actually one of the only memorable things, and thus one of the few things that is placed in my “pluses” column regarding the show.
On the other hand, I heartily recommend the first three suggestions.
I enjoyed the gun battles, and I too enjoyed that ‘ultra-fanservicey scene’ once I got past my sheer incredulity; but yeah, the world-building in Upotte! is a repeated series of WTFs.
That said, I did consider ranking it above Evangelion 3.0 because that was such a disappointment.
I don’t really do recommendations at all. For most people, I’m not sure I’d recommend any of those—Monster is too huge a time investment for most people, Jinrui is just too odd, Thermae Romae too Japanese and eccentric, 3.0 is probably the worst Eva movie so far on top of making hardly any sense even to people who have watched the preceding movies, and Upotte!! is so fanservicey & otaku-oriented that I felt uncomfortable watching much of it.
I’m hardly a neophyte; 1.0 and 2.0 made plenty of sense to me on the first viewing and I correctly inferred many of the goals that motivated apparent flaws in them, for example. So I was not expecting 3.0 to be what it was.
I watched Life of Pi in 3D. I thought the visuals were very beautiful, but the message sillier than ever and the ending seemed to pull its punch compared to the novel. I made some cynical jokes about it on Google+.
Anime (descending):
Monster
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
Thermae Romae
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
Upotte!!
I watched “Life of Pi” in 3D too. The message didn’t seem silly to me, I thought it was a really strong anti-religion piece and might even deconvert some people. Maybe we interpret the message differently?
I haven’t seen the movie, but Life of Pi is easily one of my favourite books. Of course it could never make anybody believe in God, but its brilliance is that theists (at least of a certain sort) can easily be led into thinking that it would. As a metaphor for religion, it is beautiful and accurate. It is perfectly clear what (in the framing fictional world) actually happened, and yet you know what most people (in that world or in this) are going to believe.
I only disliked the bit with the island. It was just too much, I thought; it gives the game away. But I was wrong. People choose to believe anyway! Preposterous but clung to: as I said, a perfect metaphor for theistic religion.
The book also makes it clear what it means to choose to believe in a false story, and I only hope that the movie does as well. That is how people are responding to it. Beautifully accurate. This is the best writing on religion that I have ever encountered.
Following up: I’ve seen the movie now, and while of course it’s not as good as the book, it’s pretty good.
I have niether read the novel nor watched the movie, but the tagline on the copy of the book that I briefly considered buying promised that it would “make you believe in God”; Whether this representative of the author’s actual intent, or just the marketing is unknown to me.
I think you came away with an entirely unintended view (by the filmmakers, and probably, although I’m not 100% sure, the novelist); if you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi it doesn’t seem like anyone quoted in it has any anti-religious point of view at all.
Which is not to say that you can’t extract a strong anti-religion message from the actual story! Doing so was in fact my first cynical joke (and a game we here have often played):
Wow, that’s pretty surprising. Thanks.
But… the protagonist pretty much says “V’ir frra naq qbar fbzr ubeevsvp guvatf, gura vairagrq n cerggl fgbel gb oybpx gurz bhg. Naq fb vg tbrf jvgu tbq: jura crbcyr oryvrir va tbq, gurl’er qbvat gur fnzr.” How can anyone consider this a pro-religion message? I guess I saw a really good anti-religion message while everyone else, including Obama, saw a pro-religion one.
The pretty story could just be the narration itself, truthful or not; the true horror and suffering is not going to come through his narration, even if he tries to describe his thirst or boredom or fear of the tiger. As a counter-point, consider what we’re told repeatedly by the narrator of the frame story and IIRC Pi as well: that it’s a story which will make one believe in God. A story about cannibalism & murder with a cover-up lie to preserve one’s sanity isn’t really that sort of story.
I was under the impression that the frame story was supposed to convince you to believe in God, by presenting an argument that believing in God might be a lie but it’s useful to keep your sanity and the facts don’t matter anyway. The key phrase of the film, “and so it goes with God”, uttered in a depressing tone, refers to that. That’s the brilliance I saw in the film: in the space of one minute, it presents this rational case for the usefulness of belief, then turns around and shows you how hollow it is. No?
(Sorry if I’m kind of over-explaining the point here, I’m a bit sleepy)
Yes, that’s what I thought you meant. And as I said, I like this interpretation better since I think the case for believing in God because of the story is so weak that it forms a sort of reductio so that you believe the opposite (‘this is his best argument for believing in God—it’s only a slightly useful Noble Lie?’) But I don’t think this is how the author takes the ending, or what he believes. If you look at one of Wikipedia’s refs, this interview http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec02/martel_11-11.html—it comes off as your standard mushy-headed NOMA ecumenicalism. He talks about his own directionless life, admiring all religions, getting the idea in India, that sort of thing, and caps it off:
To me, this makes the author sound like he’s… what’s that sarcastic phrase, ‘spiritual but not theistic’? If I had to guess, I think he put in the twist as a trap for the cynical and atheistic which lets them (us) think they’ve solved the story and reduced it down to dreary rationality (unweaved the rainbow) but which serves as an opportunity for the spiritual to affirm that they believe the tiger story and that believing is important even if not all the facts seem to fit (belief in belief).
I haven’t seen the movie but what you wrote sounds like a big spoiler. If so please use rot13.
I actually really liked Monster, but stopped watching because it was making my wife depressed. Oh well. In any case, if you are predisposed towards melancholy, you should avoid this one.
She should finish it, I think. The series negatively affected my mood at times. I could only bring myself to watch one to a few episodes per week ~ month, even. Stopping frequently, analysing assertions, and thinking about hard-to-process bits for long stretches at a time kept me occupied for the better part of more than a year. In the end it strengthened my ability to safely process uncomfortable ideas. Shortly after viewing the denouement ever-pervading thoughts about the series were silenced.
In brief, mental security may be better served by watching the series in its entirety; I think stopping mid-way a potentially worrying decision.
Only potentially, of course. She probably forgot about it already.
There’s a certain style of story in which things are relentlessly hopeless and depressing… until they aren’t. Once you start, not getting to the ending may not be a good idea. I haven’t seen Monster, though, so I don’t know if it’s one of these.
Assuming you’re empathic, MONSTER will harden you through trying vicarious experiences.
I believe Upotte!! to be the crappiest series I’ve ever watched to its full length(10 episodes), though from the 5th episode onwards I think I was only watching for the purpose of completion. Given it only a 4 in my anime list, and thought to give it a 3. And I speak as someone who doesn’t really mind the excessive fanservice-ness, which you named as your primary objection to it...
My own objections to it is that it doesn’t bother with world building, I couldn’t care about any of the characters, and it has no real story. One of the ultra-fanservicey scenes (gur sberfg cfrhqb-encr ol gung cflpubgvp tha/tvey) was actually one of the only memorable things, and thus one of the few things that is placed in my “pluses” column regarding the show.
On the other hand, I heartily recommend the first three suggestions.
I enjoyed the gun battles, and I too enjoyed that ‘ultra-fanservicey scene’ once I got past my sheer incredulity; but yeah, the world-building in Upotte! is a repeated series of WTFs.
That said, I did consider ranking it above Evangelion 3.0 because that was such a disappointment.
Does something being at the bottom of the list mean you don’t recommend it at all, or that you cautiously recommend it?
edit: the ratings on your anime list suggest the latter.
I don’t really do recommendations at all. For most people, I’m not sure I’d recommend any of those—Monster is too huge a time investment for most people, Jinrui is just too odd, Thermae Romae too Japanese and eccentric, 3.0 is probably the worst Eva movie so far on top of making hardly any sense even to people who have watched the preceding movies, and Upotte!! is so fanservicey & otaku-oriented that I felt uncomfortable watching much of it.
Why would you expect Evangelion to make sense?
I’m hardly a neophyte; 1.0 and 2.0 made plenty of sense to me on the first viewing and I correctly inferred many of the goals that motivated apparent flaws in them, for example. So I was not expecting 3.0 to be what it was.
Did you watch the series? Because the series starts out making sense and doesn’t go into full-blown insanity mode until near the end.
::reads plot summary of Eva 3.0 on Wikipedia::
Yeah, that’s definitely based on the insanity mode stuff...
Of course I watched the series; and I didn’t start enjoying it until it went into insanity mode, so I don’t think that’s it.
Ah. Well I haven’t watched any of the Rebuild, so I don’t know much about that version of the story.
2nd Monster but be prepared for depressing.
It’s funny, I managed to read Life of Pi and enjoy it purely as an adventure tale and ignore the stupid metaphor, but could not do the same for Dune.