Only middle-aged Ang Lee would have such a transparent arrangement. Two storms, the first occurred when the cruise ship was traveling in the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest underwater abyss in the world. The teenager who didn't know it was dancing on the deck excitedly, but suddenly found that the cabin was flooded, and his family was already there. Died underwater. The second one happened when he was drifting at sea. At that time, he had already experienced the sunrise, sunset, starlight and rain, and established a relatively harmonious coexistence with the tiger. When the storm came, he was excited again, but how could the natural madness tolerate him? With the flesh to enjoy with the left and right? After the ecstasy, there was great sadness again, the tiger was devastated, and the young man was dying.
Ang Lee arranged for two more tears, both of which were about the emotional part, and the tears fell in two lines. The first time was when the middle-aged party told about the scene where the tiger separated from himself. He said, "My parents, my brother, and Richard Parker all left me in the end. I believe that life is about letting go, but it hurts. The thing is, I didn't get to say goodbye to them properly." The second time was when the young Pi in the memory told the "Second Story" on the hospital bed. The two tears were equally true.
I believe that neither the two storms nor the two tears were just coincidences. In the context of the story, they belong to the first story and the second story respectively (the second storm and the first tear belong to the first story, the first storm and the second tear belong to the second story stories), and they can look at each other. You can say that they are the witnesses between fantasy and reality, you can also say that they are the witnesses between the inside and the outside, and you can also say that they are the witnesses between middle age and teenagers. Probably, middle-aged and juveniles are the ages when they can observe each other. At that time, I saw mountains as mountains and water as water. I have experienced seeing mountains as mountains and water as water. Now I can see mountains as mountains and water as water, but both mountains and waters have already sublimated. When I was young, I was forced to have nothing, but when I was middle-aged, I was finally willing to let go of everything, and took the initiative to return to the position of nothing, and sincerely meet the tiger in my heart, the starry sky and the storm above my head.
You might think that the first story is a wrapper and beautification of the second. My point of view is that the two stories are mirrors of each other, separated by a vast amount of time. Drifting along the ocean currents at sea is to follow fate in time. Confucius said, "A man at fifty knows the mandate of Heaven". It can be said that the ecstasy in the storm before the shipwreck is a juvenile ecstasy, and the great sorrow of recalling the murder of my mother is a juvenile great sorrow. They are stressful, immediate, and physical. And the ecstasy of encountering a storm after sunset on the vast ocean is a middle-aged, epiphany-like ecstasy, and the great sadness of seeing the tiger leave without looking back is also middle-aged. There is no time to say goodbye and goodbye, it is a sigh of the impermanence of life.
As for religion, I don't think this is a movie that celebrates faith and religion. I don't think the original intention of the movie is to emphasize that religion can beautify the cruel life and warm the heart. Because no matter how poetic the film itself is, it is cold or even cruel from the beginning to the end. The religious factor of the film, on a larger level, represents the process of people's understanding of the world. The three religions that Pai believe in at the same time represent heaven, earth, and man. Hinduism corresponds to the sky. In the myth of Krishna told by my mother, the little Krishna's mouth is the whole universe. Islam corresponds to land, and Pai said he felt at ease when he knelt down to pray, and the land below his knees became a holy place. And Christianity corresponds to people, which is why Pi is so obsessed with why Jehovah sent his Son to redeem the world and why people are not perfect. The order of the three religions is Heaven-Man-Earth, and this arrangement deserves further study. Born as a human, the first thing you have to face is the relationship between the human individual and the prehistoric universe, which means your origin. Next, you have doubts about your relationship with the people around you. Why are people not perfect? Why do people need redemption? Why sacrifice the innocent, perfect Jesus to save evil, imperfect humans? Then, all you need is grounded peace of mind. Kneel on the ground, pray to the Mecca in your heart, and find a coordinate for yourself. - This process is the process of inner perception. The process of Pai's drifting at sea and getting along with tigers, as analyzed by many commentary articles, is a collision process between outside and inside, rationality and animal nature, and only it can make those inner perceptions truly harmonious and complete. From the beginning to the end of the movie, Pie has been saying "After listening to my story, you will believe in God", I think this "God" does not just refer to Christ, or Vishnu, Allah, but a The kind of feeling that has been rounded and complete in the depths of the human heart. No matter what religion or philosophy you follow, you are bound to face the ultimate being, the One.
It can even be said that Ang Lee's way of telling the story reveals a hint of the cunning of a middle-aged man. Only a middle-aged person can tell you a legend of his own quietly and without leaking. Only in this mountain, the depths of clouds do not know where.
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