A Frankenstein for the postmodern world...gritty and edgy plunge into paranoia and madness.

Rating: Null/10 (24 February 1999)

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.
This is a movie full of paranoia, isolation, a slow decay into insanity, hidden meaning, subversion, mathematics, an incredible amount of drugs, mysticism, uncertainty, obsession, violence, loneliness, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge fueled by ego. This is a Frankenstein for the postmodern world, where the computer holds all the promise for answers, but whose inner workings mystify most people who use them. It's about patterns and structure in the midst of chaos. It's about the human mind's constant craving for order, for intelligence's grinding quest to label and categorize and put semantic meaning onto bits and pieces of perceived reality. It's about genius run awry and about those who would seek to exploit it and in so doing it help lead it to ruin.
You have got to see a small independent film called Pi. It's a mere 85 minutes of pure madness set to a ravingly edgy techno soundtrack. The editing is at times incoherent and incongruent, but exceptionally poignant. It provides the viewer access to a visceral understanding amidst what might otherwise seem a boring premise: a mathematician's quest for some new theorem. The tense editing techniques, invasive camera angles and stark contrasts in the lighting serve a crucial role as backdrop to this psychodrama as it unfolds.
This is what great filmmaking is all about. Certain comparison's to David Lynch's cult masterpiece ERASERHEAD are sure to abound, though this film is certainly easier to follow, less quirky and far grittier and accessible. It's easy for the viewer to get caught up in the narrative which includes visitations by Wall Street mobsters, a bizarre cult of kabbalistic Hasidic Jews, a nosy landlady with attitude and more. Top Notch all around. Four stars.