Psychedepic.

James Cameron, once, decided to get high on psychedelic drugs. And during this trip, Cameron ended up reading Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi', and also managed to jot down a script of sorts, which he unfortunately lost, during the course of the night.

And if that didn't happen, Academy Award Winner Ang Lee, whose impressed audiences and critics worldwide with his array of exceptional cinema, examples being Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, has proven his worth yet again, with a mind-boggling, visual spectacle of a movie.

Life of Pi, is the story of Pi Patel, a man, put into mental doubt by the spiritual aspects of life, since childhood, weighing ideologies of his practical father, his religious mother, and those gained from his experience. Soon, Pi, on a journey to Canada, with his family and the animals, of the zoo owned by his family, aboard a Japanese freighter, meets disaster, or rather destiny at it's fateful worst, as a thunderstorm claims the freighter, along with his parents, and his animals, leaving him alone with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and most importantly, a Royal Bengal Tiger by the name of Richard Parker.

With time, Pi and Richard are soon, the only two survivors of the shipwreck, holding onto a lifeboat, for dear life. The rest of story, is the duo's adventure towards survival, which ends with an ambush twist, leaving a large, gaping hole about the very authenticity of Pi's story. This movie is not a simple, glorious castaway story of survival with a happy ending. It's a mind-rapist, that, at the end of the show, aims to question the very belief system of the audience.

Performances are on a high. Debutante Suraj Sharma, does a neat job, as the protagonist Pi, but the show-stealer is Irrfan Khan, as the older Pi, who captures hearts with his subtle performance. Tabu, as the mother, and Adil Hussian as the father, do complete justice to their roles. But the real USP of the film, are the visual effects. An extravaganza of sorts, this film is perhaps one of the very few movies in recent times where 3D has actually left any impact. While James managed to transport us to a new world with Avatar, Lee manages to transform our very own world into something unbelievable in this movie.

A minor flaw in this movie, is the treatment of the Tamil language. Lee, sees to that his characters speak English, with an apparent Tamil accent, to such a level that it sounds almost irritating at times. Good job there, but it is also pitiful that his artists, speak Tamil, in an accent completely foreign. Missed that out, Mr.Lee. The music, by Mycheal Danna, is something worth mention.

In a rather simple statement, Life Of Pi, is what a Chris Nolan film would've been if it had been produced by an association of Walt Disney Pictures and Thevar Films.

Aditya Baskaran