Thank goodness for small budgets and confined spaces.

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 1998)

The movie "Pi" has to be one of the better movies I have seen this year, which goes to show that maybe James Cameron should rethink his "Does this mean bigger is better?" idea. I am very happy that this movie only had a budget of $60,000, for, if it had more, the art of it might have been lost.

The black and white of it is marvelous. Mathematics is mostly black and white, there are no shades very often, just straight cut with definitiveness. It also lends the surrealistic view of every place that Max visits. His home, lined with spidery webs of wire and equipment, the city, which is shown with sped-up footage, and also the subway, which lends a sort of simplistic view of the life under the city.
Also, I found that the metaphors were seen with ease, and therefore, aiding to the enjoyment of the film all the more. Another thing I liked about the movie was the patterns in the actual film. Many things repeated: Max's pill-popping, his daily notes, the work on the computer, etc. . . It was all just masterfully constructed.
Although the movie does have it's "yeah right" idea's (such as, would this all powerful number be ONLY 216 digits long, and why would Max be one of the FIRST to find it?) But the ambiguity of it all in the end more than pays for it. All in all, this is a great film that should definitely be seen by all and perhaps even studied for its complexity.