π (1998)

Welcome to, yet another, movie review. My flat mate (upon returning from Nottingham) said to me, "Watch this film." So I have.

π, is the critically acclaimed brain child of Darren Aronfsky who not only wrote but also directed the feature. And before we get too far into it, I must say that I am glad I watched this during the day and I regret watching it on my own. Also this may be a long review as there is just so much to pack in.

π opens with some classic drum and base loops and monotone (the entire film is shot in black and white, so is great if you are trying to help a colour blind friend, colleague or relative feel at ease) swirls. We then cut to our protagonist, Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) in his rather dingy New York apartment. He is busy running his fingers through his hair and looking uncomfortable (much like Gene Wilders character, Leo Bloom, in 'The Producers'). He leaves his apartment after un-latching (not sure if this is good English) several locks on his door. Accosted by a young Asian girl (not that sort) he is asked several mathematical questions to which he answers instantaneously (thus establishing his main character role, maths guy). As he wanders around the streets and parks of New York, Max gives us (the viewers) his theory on how the entire world is subject to an (as yet) undiscovered algorithm and how everything is linked and thusly predictions can be made. He also tell us about how he stared at the sun as a child because his mother told him not to, this event seemed to play a large part in defining Max as a person.

Max, like all good geniuses, is a recluse and socially inept and flaunts this unashamedly at the begging of the film in order to help establish his character. Another defining feature of our Max is his crippling, nose bleed inducing hyper-headaches. Well that is pretty much all you need to know about Max, so lets move on.

Max receives a phone call upon arriving home from the park from an (obviously ethnic) woman who wants to meet him for lunch (apparently for business, that is down to the intuition of the viewer. Pretty obvious though), this sort of phone call obviously happens a lot. Suitably disgruntled Max hangs up. In order to remove that past antagonism from his memory, Max sits at his (massive, wire sprawling everywhere, very much home made) computer and works on his algorithm for working out the stock market (in order to prove his theories). It turns out that Max is not just a maths whizz, but the greatest mathematical mind of his generation. This is important.

Max has few friends, there is the (rather attractive) Indian woman who lives next door and likes to mother him a bit and his old maths mentor Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis, who has also appeared (albeit briefly) in the rather more light hearted (but equally important) Ace Ventura). Sol believes that Max is working too hard and should take a break, Sol himself having suffered a stroke (we assume fairly recently) and taking things easy. Max believes himself to be close and so carries on.

Max works on and on, becoming increasingly paranoid (or is he right to be concerned?) of those around him, until one day after suffering a (by his own standards) a pretty mild panic attack, in which he hears (pretty bloody explicit) sex noises coming from the adjacent room, he hits the return button on his keyboard and the system gives him a couple of results and the spazzes out (technical term) on him and dies. Max reacts less than well, (mis)reading the results on the print out as gibberish and binning them and the bizarre number that followed them in a bin miles from his own home (why not just stick it in the kitchen bin, I do not know). He then sulks off back to Sol for a cuddle (or whatever). Sol seems surprisingly interested and quizzes Max on the bizarre gobeldie gook number that had followed the bizarre gobeldie gook results. He then tells Max that he really does need to stop. Max shouts like a deaf man trying to explain himself to a mute and sulks off home.

While ridding the tube home, Max sees some odd things and people who may or may not be there (these instances increase as the film progresses) and discovered that the way out nonsense his computer fired out in a final desperate act to preserve its own legacy, was, in fact brilliant! He desperately hunts through the rubbish where he had dumped the information earlier, but to no avail.

While this has been happening, the (ethnic) woman, representing a rather shady company, has become increasingly more aggressive (although still polite) in her attempts to get in touch with and hire Max. He rebuffs these offers claiming to have no interest in material wealth. He has also had several casual meetings with a devout Jew, name of Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman), who has interested Max in the mathematical properties of the Torah (Jewish pre-bible).

The (ethnic) woman approaches Max once more and instead of offering (cold, hard) cash she offers him a (still classified) micro chip in order to help him further his work. After a great deal of thought he decides to take it and agrees to do some "work" for this (ethnic) woman's company.

After getting really annoyed with Sol for being so close-minded and for giving up on maths (oh, how could he? rhetoric.) he agrees to help the Jews with there quest to find the meaning in the Torah. The reason to help these religious zealots? A 216 digit long number that he can link to the crashing of his computer (and Sol mentioned it also).

But now the film gets heavy (as if it wasn't already), Panic attacks increasing and headaches doing more and more damage (a combination of the two result in a rather drastic haircut). Max discovers the secret and horrible properties of this fantastic number, He gets beaten up by the (ethnic) woman, bullied by the Jews and Sol tells him how the number makes computers self aware. All this knowledge is driving Max absolutely mental, so he takes the only sane option and drills into head until the maths is gone.

As I said before do not watch this film on your own and you may want to have a pen and pad close to hand to take notes (it really is quite interesting). If you don't question things upon viewing this you either have missed the point or are so completely contented with your own life that any sort of inquisition would affect your mood detrimentally.

In closing, this film is a must see.