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Sierra Leone's "blood diamonds" helped fuel atrocities in the impoverished West African nation in the 1990s. The war has now been over for a decade, and the country's most valuable resource is no longer known as the product of a conflict. But it remains a contentious issue.

As Sierra Leoneans go to the polls Saturday, the country's diamonds are at the heart of political parties' manifestos. Opposition parties accuse the government of mortgaging lucrative diamond fields for a "pittance," while President Ernest Bai Koroma boasts of his "ambitious" efforts to transform the industry.

In diamond-rich Kono district, in the eastern part of the country, previous elections have been fiercely protested.

While the country's parliamentary election is expected to be relatively peaceful, this hub of diamond mining in the country shows a bitter irony: It's resource rich, but poverty abounds as development here has not kept pace with other parts of the country.

In Koidu, the capital of Kono, women and children stand knee deep in the fields on either side of the dusty potholed roads.

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Small-scale artisanal mining has sustained this area since diamonds were discovered in 1930, but it is hard work and the pay is low.

Director Ang Lee has a surprising affinity for the Indian hero of Life of Pi — that's his name, Pi, and he's seen at several ages but principally as a 17-year-old boy adrift on a lifeboat in the South Pacific. He's the lone survivor of a shipwreck that killed the crew, his family and a variety of zoo animals his father was transporting to North America for sale.

Actually, Pi is the lone human survivor. He shares his boat and its dwindling food supplies with a man-eating Bengal tiger.

Lee is a director whose works I've admired more than loved. All of his movies — among them Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, even Hulk — center on emotions that bump up against rigid codes of behavior — emotions that can't be suppressed and finally erupt.

Lee's range of genres and settings is impressive, but there's something about his meticulousness that keeps me at a distance. I know that many people loved Brokeback Mountain, but I got hung up on the mythical cowboy iconography, that forbidden love sanctified by purple mountain majesties. Lee makes movies about giving in to passion — without seeming to let go.

But Life of Pi is different. Most of the film is a flashback, a tale told to a writer by the middle-aged Pi. And the way Lee depicts it — in a style that's typically fastidious and arty — is astonishingly in sync with his narrator.

That lifeboat in which most of the movie takes place is a wondrous set, not realistic but not fake, either — transcendentally in-between. The water is ultra-ultramarine, the sea a mirror in which clouds above seem to mingle with sharks, dorados, luminous jellyfish, even whales below.

The orange of the tiger burns as bright as in William Blake's immortal poem. The 3-D is brilliantly effective in creating multiple planes of reality, and it also allows Lee to hold shots for longer than any studio would let him if not for that marvelously immersive technology.

This isn't just a gorgeous survival story: The search for higher meaning runs all through the movie, as it does through Yann Martel's best-selling novel.

Growing up, Pi was drawn to multiple faiths. He thanks Vishnu for introducing him to Christ while rolling out his prayer mat to honor Allah. The kid subscribes to everything. But on the lifeboat, it seems as if none of his many gods will even acknowledge his existence. He's terribly alone — except, of course, for you-know-who.

Enlarge 20th Century Fox

As if being lost at sea isn't daunting for a teenager, Pi's companion on his lifeboat is a Bengal tiger. Life of Pi is based on Yann Martel's 2001 Man Booker Prize-winning novel.

Neat rows of grapevines run down the slopes of the Cotes de Beaune, all the way to the gravel driveway at Chateau de Corton Andre. The castle's traditional Burgundy black-and-yellow-tiled roof glistens in the autumn sun.

Despite the sun, Antoine Pirie, managing director of French wine house Pierre Andre, which is headquartered in the chateau, says rain and frost this spring and three bizarre summer hailstorms cut grape yields 50, 60, even 70 percent at some vineyards; this at a time when Burgundy is increasingly popular, and sales are booming in the U.S., Britain and across Asia.

"We're going to face a very small crop," he says. "So in fact, you're going to have a kind of difference between offer and demand. And in that case, the consequence is a big increase in prices."

In the chateau's cellar, which dates back to the 14th century, tourists and wine dealers are sampling various vintages. Burgundy is about seven times smaller than Bordeaux, France's other major wine-growing region. Its vineyards are divided into much smaller plots, which are often owned and worked by families instead of large estates.

Burgundy fans say each wine is unique here, reflecting not only the winemaker's style but also the soil, the sun and the specific place on the hill where the grapes are grown.

Wine dealer Philip Slocombe has come to Burgundy for 20 years. He says his clients can never get enough of grand cru Burgundy wines.

"I think when you taste a good white or red wine from Burgundy that is elegant, subtle, complex, and in the second and the third glass keeps asking questions, then you get something, you think, 'Wow, this is something special,' " he says. "Once you've been taken by Burgundy, you always come back. There's a wonderful soul here."

Wine is the lifeblood of the tiny villages that dot the landscape of this region. It will take more than bad weather or an economic downturn to change a centuries-old way of living centered on grapes.

The church bells ring as we arrive in the village of Pommard, and a deep, fermented smell permeates the air.

They are distilling a liqueur called Marc de Bourgogne. A large vat steams with a huge mound of crushed grapes in the town plaza next to the church. Some of those crushed grapes are from the vineyard owned by Anne Parent, a 12th-generation winemaker at Domaine Parent.

"Eleven generations of men, and I'm the first woman," she says in French. "It's the second French revolution."

Parent heads down into the cellar where the 2012 vintage is aging in massive oak barrels. There is room for 350 barrels here, but today there are fewer than 200. Parent says despite the dismal season, the harvest finished on a good note with hot, dry weather that pushed the grapes to full maturity.

"This vintage is an amazing vintage," she says. "A fantastic quality. Very nice balance between fruit, tannin, acidity. Very expressive. Very generous. But the quantity is ridiculous. Ridiculous."

A few miles away, the bottling plant at Domaine Albert Bichot is at full throttle. The company, one of Burgundy's largest, exports nearly 4 million bottles a year. Its owner, Alberic Bichot, says no matter how good the quality of the 2012 vintage, growers will not be able to make up for the loss in volume.

"It's impossible," he says. "Our customers are not ready to pay the double price or 50 percent increase. In the best conditions, we can increase by 10 or 15 percent."

But Bichot says Burgundy winemakers are always ready for the unexpected, so they keep reserves from previous years to smooth out the lean times. Still, he warns, the shortage this year is so acute, that come 2014, when the 2012 vintage hits the shelves, Burgundy lovers may have to drink sparingly.

Scottish comedian and actor Billy Connolly has been performing for more than 50 years, and says he has no plans of stopping. He summed up his style of comedy to the San Francisco Chronicle: "I believe in funny, not clever.... If I hear someone described as clever, I won't buy a ticket." Connolly talks about his career and about what kind of humor works in Scotland but not in the U.S.