The Life of Pi (2012 Ang Lee)

Wonderful film from the genre-defying Ang Lee (only Kubrick compared in his variety of output?), a dizzying technical achievement in which it's hard to know where Claudio Miranda's photography stops and the special effects (whose credits run almost as long as the film itself) begins (both won Oscars, as did Lee and Mychael Danna's music). Who cares? (Christopher Doyle does, publicly slating the Oscar decision. ""I'm sure he's a wonderful guy and I'm sure he cares so much, but since 97 percent of the film is not under his control, what the fuck are you talking about cinematography?") Nevertheless, the end result is mind-blowing: film as it has never been before.

Presumably there's some real tigers in Richard Parker's appearances also.

Moments of humour too in David Magee's screenplay (adapted from Yann Martel's book) though initial scenes in lifeboat are like a particularly bad dream.

Interesting subtle stuff going on too - the aspect ratio changes to widescreen during the flying fish sequence and the fish seem to break past the edge of the frame; the strange island looks like a reclining woman.

Suraj Sharma is Pi the younger, with Irrfan Khan as his older self narrating the story to Rafe Spall.

Tim Squyres (who has worked on all Lee's films) edited, but even that term is subject to challenge as many of the transitions are clever special effect sequences in themselves. Ang Lee pissed off the entire visual effects community by thanking everybody who worked on the film but them - which takes us back to Chris Doyle's comment at the top.

That one of the Oscar-winning VFX houses Rhythm & Hues went bust after 25 years just prior to the awards is sad. It's partly a relection on the model of fixed budget contracts with studios (which unlike the building of a house are subject to change without increase in payment) and the desire to use agencies in countries which attract tax breaks (India, Canada) - see here. Though one suspects that any business that goes bankrupt is simply not well enough run. The Moving Picture Company, which was also involved, seems to be healthy.

Postscript 15 May 2014: The Mignonette story (1884) where cabin boy Richard Parker was adrift in a dinghy with three other sailors, and... ah ha!