Jon Monsarrat review: not bad but too surreal

Rating: 6/10 (31 March 2002)

PI was a little too surreal and low-budget ($60,000) to compete with the blockbusters (it's in black & white), but when you consider what they did for next to nothing it's quite impressive.
Without spoiling the story for you, a mathematician discovers something about mathematics that connects deeply with people. Considering that charts and graphics are quite stale, the movie builds this mathematical insight into a crescendo of frenzy and the film becomes an eerie yet fascinating psychological thriller. The film is disturbing on a par with "Silence of the Lambs", although it is not actually a horror film and nowhere near as bad as "Eraserhead", a surreal vision of hell which I only caught a few minutes of and still haunts me.
Who should see this film:
-- sci-fi lovers with a little arty to them, but definitely
not kids or people who get nightmares easily. It is rated R for "some disturbing images", and they ain't kidding, although the film does not involve blood and gore.
-- drama / artistic types who won't mind when the surreality
goes Whamo! Whamo! Whamo! to your brain, and can deal with
a little math
I'll give it a 6 out of 10 as an acknowledgement that it was good-ish, but I did have nightmares so in hindsight I wish I'd skipped it.