This movie falls in the realm
of fantasy and hard realism; something in the twilight zone of Paul Coelho’s
Alchemist’s spiritual conquest and Bear Grylls true adventures in the wild. If
there is allusion to spiritualism it is for you to judge but there is
unmistakable aura surrounding this eventful narrative. A business minded family
deeply fragmented by business pragmatism and religious world reaches a flash
point where the easy equilibrium, the cozy lifestyle is suddenly disturbed for
the worst. A decisive point in life for family to take a call to define their
future and they do so. The father of
protagonist, a zoo owner in Pondicherry winds up his business and sets out to
migrate to Canada. They undertake their journey in a Japanese cargo ship so
that animals a can also be transported. The major part of events take place after
ship break in a fiery storm over the Altlantic. The narrative zigzags in Gulzaresque
flashback style.
It opens with the protagonist
now a wizened adult in Canada narrating his experience to the writer and the
flashbacks happen during this conversation. Ang Lee succeeds in capturing
Indian ethos, brings alive nuances of his early childhood as a curious young
fellow. The compacted childhood nicely builds up character of the young hero, a
bewildered young man in awe of the sublime. The meaty portion of the movie is
all about special effects and apparently no expense was spared to recreate
marine experience. The building up of relationship between the young fellow and
the beast is done with finesse and subtlety. The floating island scene creates
metaphor for search of spiritual mysticism. Also the incredulous response of
Japanese investigators to his real experience, trying to unravel drowning of
the cargo vessel and his quickly thought up fictitious story to make it
palatable adds another set of mysticism.
I will not judge its
production value for I seriously suspect substandard projection facility at Big
Cinema, the bright sun appears fudgy as if a low resolution frame is exploded
to fill up the space, the 3D effect at
places unhinges all apparently fault of the theater. Overall a joyful
experience with ‘paisa vasool’ and free popcorn.
I would rate this film four
stars out of five stars
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