If you don't understand it, it's not for you...

Rating: Null/10 (15 December 2001)

Never before has there been a character study that completely encompasses the viewer inside the head of a main character. This experience was presented to me in the form of Darren Aranofsky's Pi'. This film is an amalgamation of hyper-kinetic editing, great story telling, and astounding cinematography. Furthermore, the film completely revolves around its' main character and his related fragmentations of life as he seeks to discover the patterns of nature. Sean Gullette portrays Max Cohen, a surreal character who aims at decoding the pattern of existence. His obsession with patterns brings him to the attention of Wall Street Hoodlums and a Hasidic Sect who will stop at nothing in order to make good use of Max's ingenuity for their own personal gain. The Wall Street Hoodlums want Max for his encryption of the Stock market, and The Hasidic want him to uncover the numeric pattern contained within the Torah. As he uncovers many great dilemmas within his own mind, Director Aranofsky portals us into a cinematic experience filled with vast wonder and imagination. Furthermore, what makes this film so good is that it is an independent film. Aranofsky demonstrates that our main character lives alone and cannot maintain prolonged human contact. He boards himself up in his apartment relentlessly pursuing the goal of a new discovery while nearing himself to the brink of insanity. All this is conveyed with style, wonder and achievement through Aranofsky's intoxicating visuals and quaint story telling. The film opens up with a great scene that shows us the absolute intelligence of this obsessed mathematician as he mentally and correctly answers such mathematical problems as 322 x 481. Within a second he correctly spits out the answer to the little girl next door: 158 102. From there on end, we as the audience are completely aware that this is no ordinary mathematician. He suffers from severe headaches due to the fact that he stared at the sun when he was six, and is completely invested in his cracking of the codes. As he looks at the world he sees remerging patterns, from the milk spreading in his coffee to the way the water drains itself in the sink. Cohen is completely baffled by his incompetence for discovery and relies mainly on his old Professor; played by Mark Margolis for advice. The film is photographed in black and white and gives us the birth of Aranofsky's trademark Hip-Hop Montage' as so eloquently viewed in Requiem for a Dream'. The color, coupled with the film's inorganic look between the fuzziness of texture within the frame to the white outs that end each of Cohen's disturbing headache sequences  demonstrate that this is no ordinary film. This film is of pure artistic merit and deserves a second viewing simply for the direction coupled with the editing of the film.
As for the film itself, some may not truly understand it and the ending may leave some viewers befuddled. But what its known is that Aranofsky has given this film a timeless feel even though it occurs in present day. In an odd analogy, it reminded me of Tim Burton's look in Batman where he uses the 1950's look with the cars coupled with present day gadgetry and a gothic setting, seemingly placing our characters within different time periods. Furthermore, as heard in Aranofsky's Audio Commentary on the DVD track, he himself states that he was inspired from Terry Gilliam's Brazil' in establishing a timeless feel. For example, the introduction of Cohen's apartment shows us a dot matrix printer and a rotary phone. Aranofsky takes old technology and reinvents it for the present while maintaining an antique feel to the film. This film is by no means neither a conventional nor commercial film. It is quite simply the art of a Director who chooses to dwell within the psyche of troubled man so flawlessly and that gives us a profound cinematic experience. To end this, I chose a line spoken by Max in the film that can easily be applied to the appreciation of this film, If you don't understand it, it's not for you.'