disturbing and beautiful, NOT about math

Rating: Null/10 (11 February 2002)

"pi" is not really about math, and all the pretentious commentators here who want to impress people by talking about how the theories in it are false or wrong or whatever (i studied math, i'm an astrophysicist, look at me) are completely missing the point. this is about the danger of asking metaphysical questions and pursuing ultimate answers ferociously. max (a misanthropic, half mad mathematical genius) is looking for a pattern that can be found underlying everything in the universe, in other words, the meaning of life. it could just as well have been about poetry or philosophy as infinitely complex calculations and math. his older (and probably wiser) colleague warns max that he may be diving headlong into the horrific realization that men of genius of all kinds have feared since the beginning of time, namely, that there really is no basic order to our world and that while our mental apparatus can strain all it wants, it may indeed be looking for something that just isn't there. max is too far gone to listen, however, and his horror of possible meaninglessness and chaos drives him to exploit the deepest trajectories of the mind in order to discover the possibly non existent answer that he thirsts for. i would not necessarily say that the movie is a warning against searching for the meaning of life, however, and one should notice how the director portrays the wall street gang who pursue max for the code that would enable them to predict the stock market, as self interested (or "petty", as max so aptly calls them) materialists. max descends farther and farther into madness and severe paranoia, and drives away the already marginal and awkward relations he has with other human beings. at the end, max commits suicide with a drill in a scene that is as tragic as it is foreboding. perhaps the moral is that stretching the human will and intellect to their utmost is to risk what may be the only meaning of life, that is, the simple and human appreciation of it. this movie is absolutely essential for those who love art house movies and for aficiandos of the surreal. a necessity.