Ang Lee's Daring Journey

TAIPEI — You have to trust Ang Lee to make the impossible possible, to make the “unfilmable” filmable, to keep on challenging and topping himself with every film.

Case in point: Life Of Pi, his latest directorial job based on Yann Martel’s best-selling novel, predicted to be a big contender in next year’s Oscars. Produced by 20th Century Fox, the $120M movie, shot partly in India and mostly in Ang Lee’s native Taiwan, was done in 3D, a technology that’s new to Ang Lee and which he handled very beautifully, prompting Time magazine to compare it to James Cameron’s Avatar.

Playing the titular role as Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi for short, in honor of a swimming pool in France) is newcomer Suraj Sharma, who has just turned 18 and is set to enter college to take up Philosophy (and a course in Filmmaking on the side). He beat 3,000 other hopefuls (including his younger brother whom he escorted to the audition).

The film revolves around Pi, raised in Pondicherry, India, with his family who runs a zoo. Inquisitive and philosophical, Pi learns about the behavior of animals even as he explores different cultures and traditions while falling for a beautiful girl. Then, Pi survives a shipwreck in which his family dies, with only fearsome Bengali tiger named Richard Parker sharing with him a small lifeboat on a perilous voyage across the Pacific. It becomes a life-changing journey about faith and the meaning of life.

Conversations did a one-on-one with both Ang Lee and Suraj (more on him next Sunday, Dec. 2) at the Le Meridien Hotel in this city. The junket attended by other journalists from the Asian region was capped by a trip to Taichung (set of the shoot) where Ang Lee and Suraj were given a tribute by the mayor and presented (Ang Lee who came with his wife Jane Lim) with a huge painting of a scene from the movie.

What did you find fascinating about the story?

Ang Lee and his wife Jane Lim receive a framed enlarged copy of the movie’s poster at a tribute in Taichung where most of the movie was shot

“Well, it’s a best-selling book and it tells about a great adventure story — a boy and a tiger on a small lifeboat drifting across the Pacific after a shipwreck. It’s interesting how the boy survives his own sanity and how faith carries him through the ordeal, which is both symbolical and exciting. I found the book both fantastical and mind-boggling. When I was approached five years ago by 20th Century Fox, I was tempted; I was challenged how to film that story. You know, I had to rely on illusion more than books…how you examine the illusion while you are in it and how you get out of it.”

Some people can’t help comparing Life Of Pi to Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea and Time magazine compared it to James Cameron’s Avatar because it’s the first time you’re using 3D. Were you challenged by the fact that people were saying that the novel was “unfilmable?”

“Yes and no. If something looks impossible, you just have to find ways to make it possible. That’s pretty rational. I used 3D even though I didn’t know what 3D was. It was impossible to shoot in the Pacific Ocean, so I had to create a huge ‘new wave’ tank that imitated the whole ocean. FiIming in the water is the hardest thing to do, especially since more than half of the movie shows the boy and the tiger adrift in the sea, so I thought 3D was the best way to do it. I presented the budget to the producers before they gave me the go-signal. The preparation alone took one year and a half.”

And you decided to choose a neophyte actor, an Indian boy born and raised in India and not an Indian boy from somewhere else. What did you see in Suraj Sharma?

“I find Suraj so pure. That’s Pi. It would have been different if, say, I found an Indian boy educated and who grew up in America with a very modern attitude. He wouldn’t fit in the story. So I prayed that I would find the kind of boy that I wanted in India…in Delhi. There were about 3,000 who auditioned on videotape. After three rounds of  reading, we narrowed the number down to 12 and Suraj came out the best of them right away. He escorted his younger brother but he didn’t do well. The casting director saw Suraj and he said, ‘What about you?’ He got the job.”

The monologue toward the end of the movie was very impressive. For a newcomer like Suraj to have pulled that was amazing, quite a feat. How did you help Suraj do it?

“He was like a blank page. He’ll take whatever you put on it. First, we had to train Suraj. He didn’t know how to swim so we trained him how to do it. Pi is a superb swimmer and Suraj has to be like Pi. I had to give him acting lessons, yoga lessons, all kinds of lessons. Actually, halfway into the movie, he was already a very good actor. He kept saying he had never acted before but he has turned out to be a good one. Even experienced actors who would work with him, they’d be intimidated. “He’s pure, a great talent, so you have to use him very smartly and not ruin him by asking him to do the regular movie thing. He’s soulful, he photographs very well and, like all talents, he gives you the uncanny feeling that they have known everything from a previous life.

“There are many scenes with many layers so you really have to guide him. The good thing about Suraj is that once you tell him something, he stays there. He doesn’t ask about anything and forget about it. It’s easy to happen with young actors. But Suraj doesn’t do that; he just keeps building up. He’s a miraculously talented young man.”

You seem to be challenging yourself every time — from The Wedding Banquet to Sense and Sensibility; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Lust, Caution; and Brokeback Mountain. Different genre every time.

“I’m a basically curious person — you know, how do you do this, how do you do that. And I’m also scared about doing the same thing and not do something fresh, so I keep trying something new. I think that I’m fortunate that I can treat my career like an extended film school because I want to keep learning. Making movies is my life.” (Adding in jest) “In marriage, I’m pretty loyal, but in movie-making, I must have as many concubines as possible.”

Besides telling a good story, what do you have in mind when you’re shooting a movie — is it awards or commercial success or what?

“Commercial success and awards are pretty good things. I have a reverse kind of feeling. People might think that you make movies in order to get success. But to me, it’s the other way around because I need success to keep on making movies. Without success, I cannot take so much money and experiment an artistic endeavor in a 3D movie. That’s not gonna happen if I don’t have success behind me. I want to keep on making movies and trying more new things.”

Ang Lee: ‘I’m a basically curious person — you know, how do you do this, how do you do that. And I’m also scared about doing the same thing and not do something fresh, so I keep trying something new. I think that I’m fortunate that I can treat my career like an extended film school because I want to keep learning. Making movies is my life.’

In the story, Pi is thrown into not only a journey at sea but a search for himself and the meaning of life. What to you is the meaning of life?

“We have to find meaning in life, so I cannot tell you what it is. I’m not a priest. I’m Chinese and I believe in Taoism — you know, there’s no meaning and if there’s meaning that’s artificial, that’s temporary, that’s bias. We have to create a meaning otherwise we go crazy. There’s God who created us so we must also create God.”

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)