Pi
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Artisan Entertainment Director: Darren Aronofsky Writer: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Schenkman, Samia Shoaib, Pamela Hart
In Franis Coppola's 1986 movie "Peggie Sue Got Married" Kathleen Turner is transported to her past. With a knowing air she notifies her algebra teacher that she found his subject to be useless, just as she had predicted. Darren Aronofsky has another idea. In the bold, Kafkaesque film "Pi," his nerdish hero not only finds abstract mathematics relevant: it dominates his life to such a degree that only a lobotomy could free his mind from this obsession. As a renegade mathematician, Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) has worked for ten years to prove his epic hypothesis that there is a pattern to everything which can be reduced to numbers. More specifically, he has been trying to outfox the stock market by documenting its configuration and by doing so to be able to predict any stock's price on a given day. His research draws the attention of two groups as diverse as New York's Hasidic community and of high-level stockbrokers, equally intent on gaining access to the code (which they are certain he has broken) and willing to use bribery and violence to secure the concealed information.
Using reverse-image black-and-white film to give the entire drama a nightmare ambiance, photographer Matthew Libatique almost literally gets right inside the distressed head of this mathematician, Max Cohen (Sean Gullette), who dominates the entire brief movie with his geek-like demeanor. Calling himself a private person but in reality a hermit who simply does not want to talk to anyone but his old teacher Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), Max has holed himself up in an ant-infested flat in Chinatown and has turned away almost all human support. Not even the seductive neighbor Devi (Samia Shoalb) can get through his triple-locked door: she must content herself with leaving the samosas she regularly prepares for his meals outside.
"Pi" is so claustrophobic and obscure that its very indistinct nature is its greatest strength. Any computer geek who knows how swiftly time passes when wrapped up in a game, a calculation, an attempt at creative writing, can relate to Max's more extreme predicament. Max is tormented on the one hand by a Hasidic Kabbalah scholar, Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman), who believes that Max has uncovered nothing less than the 216-letter name of The Divinity Himself; and on the other hand by an aggressive Wall Street executive, Marcy Dawson (Pamela Hart) who is satisfied that Max's 216-number code will divine the prices of stocks for decades to come. His only recreation is the game of Go, which he plays with his equally cryptic old friend, Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), who cites Archimedes and can do not better than to advise Max to "take a bath."
Following two other movies with strongly Jewish themes to open this year--Boaz Yakin's "A Price Above Rubies" and Sandra Goldbacher's "The Governess"--writer-director Dareen Aronofsky's "Pi" creates a vivid and humorous portrayal of a streetwide Hasidic Jew, a sham pal who invites Max to "c'mon, we'll hang out" while determined to pump his fellow tribe member for information that would hasten the appearance of the Messiah. While laying tefillin on the secular man who is "not interested in religion," he explains poignantly that the practice brings us closer to God, and to his credit he will use Max's intelligence for a more noble purpose than Max's other counterfeit compatriot, who wants only to makes gobs of money.
Aronofksy's frenetic pacing is well served by Oren Sach's rapid editing and Clint Mansell's rap music, which keep the film moving along at breakneck speed, a cerebral movie which paradoxically generates visceral suspense. We wonder how the drama will end, whether Wall Street or Williamsburg will ultimately receive Pi's golden apple. Most of all we get to care about poor Max who, after a decade of fruitless research is driven to hallucinatory insanity just as victory is within his reach. You hope that this mad mathematician will learn one of the great lessons of pop song: "Oh, it's fine to be a genius of course,/ But keep that old horse before the cart./ First you've gotta have heart."
Eureka! This movie is the ultimate portrayal of the numbers racket--a slice of pi that as sci-fi fantasy really does cut it and makes us hunger fort desserts in store as a sequel to this promising debut by Mr. Aronofsky.
Not Rated. Running time: 85 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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