Riveting Descent into a Madness/Genius state

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2001)

Quite an interesting observation of cerebral madness/genius. I will never look at a drill in quite the same way again!!!! Clever how the film-maker blurred the lines between reality and a dream state. And the piercing music that was played when he was experiencing a headache was very effective - I almost got a headache too. I read a review that said that the grainy black and white imagery was only annoying but I thought it was quite effective. It helped portray a distinctively unique world that this mathematician lived in - numbers were all important and things on the periphery were not as important....such as colour. When they talked about the 216 (I think) digit number in the film being all important, I thought there was going to be a further investigation done which said that other numbers when multiplied together would give this number.......but luckily they did not borrow from "The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy"! At the end, I was not sure if the main character was at peace not thinking about maths and just appreciating the beauty of the leaves in a tree OR that he was trying to mathematically break down the structure of the leaf into a number or formula. However, I did enjoy the ideas posed in the film such as the hidden code in the Jewish Torah......interesting the power struggle between the religious sect and the money market people!
All in all, an excellent film if you like mental workouts. Truly original.