USA, 1998, black and white
wri./dir. darren aronofsky
st. sean gullette, mark margolis
a beyond films release
opens July 15th 1999 at Hoyts Broadway and Walker St, Nth Sydney
won best director at 1998 Sundance film festival

Pi is a low-budget, black and white, new york production about an neurotic jewish math genius, Maximillian Cohen, who develops a predictive model for the stockmarket based on number patterns. A deeply unhinged, antisocial individual, Max is obsessed with three assumptions:

1. Mathematics is the language of nature
2. Everything around can be represented and understood through numbers
3. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge
Therefore: there are patterns everywhere in nature.

With his home-built super-computer Euclid, Max dedicates himself to discerning the pattern behind the systemic chaos of Wall Street, a pattern based on a 216 number sequence also found in Pi and the Torah. The problem is, as Max's success rate increases, so do his migraines and neurotic episodes. Meanwhile he he is aggressively courted by stock market heavies and a hasidic sect of numerologists who believe the 216-character long number to be the true name of God, lost to the Jews ever since the Romans pillaged the great temple and destroyed the covenant with its ten commandments.

I first heard of Pi in a post-Matrix discussion about electronic music in films. A friend mentioned that Pi had a killer soundtrack, with prominent electronic artists such as Roni Size, Massive Attack, Banco de Gaia, Orbital, Aphex Twin, Gus Gus and David Holmes. All of which is true, except all of the artists have been added in post-production, dubbed in to strengthen the film's marketability, presumably after it was picked-up by a major studio or distributor. The filmmakers clearly could not have afforded the royalties for these artists, and the brand name music is incidental whenever it is used - an afterthought squeezed in as part of the packaging of Pi as 'hip, underground, cult-film.' Whilst I am a huge fan of electronica and these artists, it annoys me that it is used cynically and unjudiciously. The film, whilst it talks about mathematics, computers and systems, is only weakly linked with the culture of its soundtrack - it uses only short invasive snippets of these recognisable tunes, to little effect except as momentum to dicey editing. The very fact that the poster for the movie features a litany of big name electronic artists as prominently as the film's title, and replacing any images or ideas from the film, makes me doubly resistant to its appeal. The score written by Pop Will Eat Itself's Clint Mansell was more than sufficient for this film, delivering a sparseness which complimented the stylised black and white cinematography.

The DOP, matthew libatique, worked with aronofsky to develop a subjective approach to shooting the film, using special camera rigs and high contrast black to create a distinctive look for the film. This look, similar to Kevin Smith's low-budget Clerks, strives to emulate the stylised, off-beat surrealism of Eraserhead, whilst introducing elements taken from the DOP and editor's background in making music videos and tv commercials. It has a certain edginess to it which helps chart max's descent into madness, but at times leads the film to wallow in its visual sophistication. Max has repeated migraines that are conveyed to the viewer with high-pitched squeals and spastic camerawork; he also suffers from repetitive attacks of paranoia depicted by jolting tracking shots and deliberately overexposed closeups. If you're not in that urban sophisticate sorta mood, the film is harsh on the eyes, its rhythm severely disturbed and irregular.

What makes Pi interesting is the concepts behind it, and the filmmakers' drive to not just use them but link and explain them to the audience. Many of us have a fascination with the intriguing patterns found in nature - fractals, fibonachi series, the infinite decimal numbers in Pi. The mystique of pure maths makes for interesting books like Contact, and some superb documentaries on SBS, but I've not seen a film ambitious enough to incorporate these high-concept theories into its narrative. Pi impressed me because it combined these ideas with religious mysticism and corporate conspiracy, on a $60,000 budget and a love of learning. The funds were raised a la Cassavetes, with the filmmakers' asking family and friends for $100 investments, in return for bit parts and $150 back if the film was successful. The cast and crew all worked for the same deferred salary of $200 a day and an equal share of the film's eventual take. This kibbutz-style approach to filmmaking is cleverly highlighted in the production notes, in part to justify the film's shortcomings in terms of its audaciousness and intentions, as well as to emphasise its strong jewish themes. Many of the filmmakers and the characters are jewish, and the plot draws heavily on jewish mysticism - specifically the numerology of hebrew and the kaballah, which George Lucas also used heavily in creating his Star Wars mythology.

All in all, Pi is an interesting exercise in DIY film-making, the sort of ambitious battler Sundance audiences just lap up. It's a sophisticated film pitched at the university-educated, preferably the gregarious, opinion-leading kind, but is perhaps a little overhyped by the enthusiastic people who have snapped it up for underground success.

eugene chew
comments? email the author

Also in toto:
Read an analysis of Pi the movie, its debt to literary sci-fi and the history of ideas - in a special feature by huan-tzin goh