Life of Pi, Channel 4, Sunday, 9pm.
FILM OF THE WEEK:
With its incredible, eye-popping visuals, director Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning drama may seem like it was made to be seen in 3D on the biggest screen possible.
However, unlike certain other CGIdriven blockbusters we could mention, Life ofPi is so powerful, this network premiere will still grip you, no matter how small or low-definition your TV may be.
Based on Yann Martel’s acclaimed novel, it sees a writer (Rafe Spall) interviewing Pi (Irrfan Khan) about his life.
Pi describes his childhood in India, living in the zoo run by his dad, and how the family and its animals were forced to move to Canada when he was a teenager.
However, during the voyage, the ship sank and he was left adrift in a small boat with a ferocious tiger.
Newcomer Suraj Sharma does a superb job as the young Pi, but the real star of the show is the winningly named Richard Parker, the tiger who dominates every frame he’s in.
Like Parker, the movie is a rare beast : an art house film shot on a blockbuster scale, with state-of-the-art special effects.
And as Crouching Tiger,HiddenDragon proved, no one can pull off that difficult balancing act quite like Lee (we’ll gloss over his audience-dividing 2003 comicbook adaptation Hulk for the time being).
Have your hankies at the ready, keep an open mind and prepare to be dazzled by a truly unique film experience.
Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Tabu, Gerard Depardieu, Andrea Di Stefano and Shravanthi Sainath also star.