Life of Pi director Ang Lee said Irrfan Khan should’ve been awarded for his iconic ‘goodbye speech’, Naseeruddin Shah criticised him for his accent

When the Emergency happens, Pi’s parents, who are zoo owners, decide to move to Canada, but are unable to survive the deathly Mariana Trench. Pi remains largely unscathed, but now finds himself in the dangerous and unlikely company of a Bengal tiger, a zebra, a hyena and an orangutan. After the hyena turns into a killing machine, Pi is left with only the tiger, Richard Parker, on boat. So, do they make it to the end? Does Richard Parker ends up eating his human companion, or the entire story, which a grown-up Pi (a sublime Irrfan) is narrating to a writer is a load of hogwash? That’s for the audience to decide, but as cliched as it sounds, the journey to get on safe shore is what matters here, and what Pi takes away from the experience.

The film discusses topical issues like religion, man vs wild, memory as a narrative tool and the process of storytelling itself, offering interesting insights about how a story changes in the way we reveal details about it, and how the human memory is a fickle thing.

Almost all of the visual marvels take place when the lead character is at the sea, literally. And although we now have a sensory overload of CGI so that we have become desensitised to its wonders, but in 2012, this level of finesse which Life of Pi displayed, was still novel. The images of the animals in water, and on that tiny boat, and especially that awe-inspiring image of the humpback whale is still fresh in my mind. Avatar director James Cameron himself had said at the time to LA Times, “Unless you’ve read the book – which I hadn’t – you have no idea where that journey is going. It does what good 3-D is supposed to do, which is, it allows you to forget you’re watching a 3-D movie.” And just when you thought all of this technical brilliance cannot be surpassed by a mere human, in came Irrfan’s character, the adult Pi, with his heart wrenching concluding monologue about last goodbyes.

In author Aseem Chhabra’s book Irrfan Khan, director Ang Lee revealed that he always wanted to work with the acting giant, saying, “There were only a couple of actors to choose from in India and he was the top choice. Obviously I wanted to make an international film, but I also chose him for his good acting. It wasn’t like I had a list of five people to choose from.”

In the book, Lee also lauded Irrfan’s acting, especially in the aforecited speech, despite the slight criticism the actor received for his imperfect Canadian accent.

It is an emotionally demanding speech and Irrfan actually broke down twice. Ang says he did not demand the tears from Irrfan. He simply explained the emotions, the background and how he felt thinking about the scene.  “With actors I just want to see the results. I don’t care how they pull it off. What experience they use, they can keep that to themselves. But that was the effect I wanted, what the speech meant to me. I thank him for that. It’s very inspiring for a lot of people around the world. His speech was a dream for a filmmaker. He should have been nominated. He should have gotten an award for that speech.”

Naseeruddin Shah, however, was critical of Irrfan’s accent. “I was delighted he (Irrfan) got roles in Hollywood films. In Life of Pi I didn’t care for his performance because he tried to put on a Canadian accent and it didn’t work. Angrezi woh itni achee nahi bolta ke accent badal sake. (He does not speak English well enough to change his accent.) That’s what I told him and he accepted it,” Naseer had said.

Life of Pi was a critical and commercial success, making a whopping $609 million of its considerably modest $120 million budget.

Life of Pi is available to stream on YouTube and Google Play.