Double bill of films set in India. In ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), John Madden directs an all-star cast of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup and Tom Wilkinson as a group of mature Brits who travel to India looking for a sunnier climate in which to retire. Despite its glossy publicity campaign, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful turns out to be rather different from the refurbished luxury hotel advertised in the brochures. However, as the previously lonely people grow closer, the hotel soon begins to reveal some unexpected charms of its own. ‘Life of Pi’ (2012) is an Academy Award-winning fantasy adventure based on Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel. Suraj Sharma stars as Pi Patel, a 16-year-old zookeeper’s son from Pondicherry who finds himself stranded on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean in the company of a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger following the shipwreck of the freighter on which he and his family were sailing for Canada. Over the course of several months Pi manages to survive on the meagre supplies of food and water he finds on the boat, and also takes up fishing, while in his half-delirious state he muses on various aspects of animal behaviour, religion and the meaning of life.
