Pi (1998)

And just like that I'm left scratching my head for the second time.

My first viewing of π was during a 24-hour Fest, sometime well past the midnight mark. The group knew next to nothing about the movie when we threw it in our line-up (messed up movies tend to go in the early-morning hours so we knew at least that much); in hindsight, it was sort of a silly place to drop the movie. I was in and out of sleep I'm certain, but saw enough of the film to know that I could never hope to catch up to what was going on. There was a lot of talk about power-drills and brains, but beyond that the movie seemed incomprehensible.

As an aside, I'd like to mention at this point that I'm a registered super-fan of Requiem for a Dream and a considered admirer of The Fountain (which I intend to see a couple of more times before declaring it a failed experiment or masterpiece; a movie like The Fountain doesn't allow much middle ground). I like Darren Aronofsky a lot as a filmmaker and think he has mad skills. He will continue to be a Director-to-Watch for me for a good, long time.

Regardless of this, my second viewing of π was another misfire. Wide awake, focused and prepared for the low-fi style of the film, I still came back with a handful of sand. The premise of the film is solid: a math genius believes that all mysteries can be solved with numbers and finds himself at the centre of an obsessive quest for a 216-digit number which may or may not have a higher purpose. This is the sort of log-line that fires up someone like me; I have a math degree, enthusiasm for puzzles and a tremendous appreciation for math in movies, done right. However, the movie circles the premise, offers a few teasing nuggets (the connections between the Hebrew alphabet and their mathematical counterparts is fun) and ultimately delivers a stack of gobbledy-gook. Even the climax, with blood and power tools galore, didn't really satisfy me as it wasn't clear what I was supposed to be taking away from this radical conclusion: ambiguity is cool, but I didn't even feel like I had enough information to start out with theories.

[If someone wants to explain, I'd be happy to entertain some theories. I wasn't enthusiastic enough or intrigued enough to go looking for explanations on message boards...]

I wish I liked this movie more. I wished I loved it. I may even give it another go in 10 years, but for now, I have to file it away as a precious art-house film with a lot of big ideas but little in the way of solid ammunition.