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Pi
1999
Low-budget film that won Aronofsky "Best Director" at 1998's Sundance Film Festival. Gritty, inventive black-and-white photography drives this story of genius mathematician Max Cohen who is exploring the possible existence of discernible patterns in the stock market. With the aid of Euclid, his home grown supercomputer, Max .. Read more
| Starring | Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Samia Shoaib |
|---|---|
| Director | Darren Aronofsky |
| Genres | Drama |
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Critics' reviews (6)
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In this fascinating thriller, Sean Gullette plays a reclusive maths genius who becomes obsessed with the notion that everything in the universe can be broken down into mathematics and therefore follows a predictable pattern. Shot in black-and-white and marking the feature debut of Darren Aronofsky, it's filled with complex issues (can Gullette's “gift” be used to decipher the true name of God?) and makes arresting use of disorientating camerawork to depict Gullette's distorted view of the world. But, despite its many virtues, Pi becomes increasingly hard to follow because of an overload of intricate ideas that could baffle even Stephen Hawking.
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"...Ingeniously cerebral, playfully twisted....A tour-de-force of grainy, high-contrast black-and-white photography and inventive editing and sound design..."
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Holed up in his Chinatown apartment, electronics whiz Max (Gullette, who, with the director and producer, came up... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful members' reviews (3)
View all -
31 out of 35 people found this review helpful
Furious Invention.
Darren Aronofsky has taken a defiantly unfilmable story and created something really quite startling. The film documents mathematician Max's struggle with both his sanity and the mysterious Pi, the enigmatic ratio of a circle's circumference to diameter. Max believes that Pi holds the key to discerning hidden structures in the universe and to this end he is pursued by a multinational finance company who hope his discovery will lead to complete mastery of the global stock market.
Reminiscent of early David Lynch (especially Eraserhead), Pi is shot in gloriously dense, grainy black and white. The light is uniformly harsh, throwing deep, chiascuro shadows and rendering liquids positively mercurial.
Despite it's surrealist leanings, the film is strongly characterised and plotted, with more than a nod toward film noir traditions. The cerebral script is wonderfully visualised and you are left appreciating just what you can do with a hand-held camera, an intelligent script and a lot of imagination. -
13 out of 15 people found this review helpful
Dark
Superb dark low budget movie. Very good use of imagery, and a brilliantly disjointed well thought out storyline. The grainy dark feel compliments the story perfectly.
Also features a very enjoyable 'making of' documentary. -
11 out of 12 people found this review helpful
Intense
Another intense piece of film making by Aronofsky, this film certainly bears similarities to the brilliant Requiem For A Dream with the sounds and visuals making it very uncomfortable to watch at times. The plot is undoubtedly fascinating as we follow our tortured hero's attempts to find mathematical patterns in the universe and the pursuit by outside forces looking to harness his genius for their own ends. Overall I really enjoyed it as you don't really see movies like this very often and while things are left unexplained and a bit vague you don't always find explanations in every film you see so you can let this one off.
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Most recent members' reviews (2)
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
wish i hadn't bothered
peculiar right from the start the starange filming style got annoying very quickly. The subject could have been interesting but was a bit too dark for my liking
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5 out of 7 people found this review helpful
............?
I only managed to watch half of it and couldn't find out what it's about. ........!?
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31 out of 35 people found this review helpful
Furious Invention.
Darren Aronofsky has taken a defiantly unfilmable story and created something really quite startling. The film documents mathematician Max's struggle with both his sanity and the mysterious Pi, the enigmatic ratio of a circle's circumference to diameter. Max believes that Pi holds the key to discerning hidden structures in the universe and to this end he is pursued by a multinational finance company who hope his discovery will lead to complete mastery of the global stock market.
Reminiscent of early David Lynch (especially Eraserhead), Pi is shot in gloriously dense, grainy black and white. The light is uniformly harsh, throwing deep, chiascuro shadows and rendering liquids positively mercurial.
Despite it's surrealist leanings, the film is strongly characterised and plotted, with more than a nod toward film noir traditions. The cerebral script is wonderfully visualised and you are left appreciating just what you can do with a hand-held camera, an intelligent script and a lot of imagination. -
13 out of 15 people found this review helpful
Dark
Superb dark low budget movie. Very good use of imagery, and a brilliantly disjointed well thought out storyline. The grainy dark feel compliments the story perfectly.
Also features a very enjoyable 'making of' documentary. -
11 out of 12 people found this review helpful
Intense
Another intense piece of film making by Aronofsky, this film certainly bears similarities to the brilliant Requiem For A Dream with the sounds and visuals making it very uncomfortable to watch at times. The plot is undoubtedly fascinating as we follow our tortured hero's attempts to find mathematical patterns in the universe and the pursuit by outside forces looking to harness his genius for their own ends. Overall I really enjoyed it as you don't really see movies like this very often and while things are left unexplained and a bit vague you don't always find explanations in every film you see so you can let this one off.
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10 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Crazed and Beautiful
Having loved Requiem for a Dream by Arnofski, I decided to track down any other material by him. Stumbling across Pi I didn?t really know what to expect. I've seen this feature a few times now, and every time I find myself in a kind of daze. The look of the film is raw, artistic and beautiful. The story is superb and you'll find yourself thinking far too much about it's theories, yet for anyone who likes to think, and be philosophical - then Pi's for you.
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9 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Give me Requiem for a Dream
You can see almost from the start that this is the same director as 'Requiem for a Dream'.
But the story isn't a patch on the latter films. It's a bit silly with, as I'm sure must have been said a thousand times, absolutely no possible degree of scientific truth, and is effectively little more than had Michael Douglas been an introverted maths geek in 'Falling Down'.
Good soundtrack though! -
6 out of 8 people found this review helpful
A stunning directorial debut
In the context of a first movie on a low budget, pi is a startling film.
Less polished than 'Requiem for a Dream', but containing many of Aronovsky's stylistic trademarks, pi is disturbing and provocative.
Ultimately the plot cannot keep pace with the camerawork, leaving you slightly disappointed, but this movie remains one of the all-time most impressive directorial débuts. -
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Looks good, tastes a bit queer
I thought I wouldn't be able to resist a dark, arty film about Maths (sorry, Math) with a drum & bassy soundtrack, but somehow it's just a little too Eraserhead - your intellectual side tells you it's quality, but you (well, me at least) are left wondering if it was really worth the effort. It looks gorgeous, it's just not that much fun. Perhaps one to project in silence onto the pristine white wall of your trendy bar? You do the math.
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5 out of 7 people found this review helpful
............?
I only managed to watch half of it and couldn't find out what it's about. ........!?
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Plenty of style, lost content
If the director wanted to carry out some visual experiment, he did well. Every scene is aesthetically satisfying and the camera angles interesting. I applaud the effort.
But sadly the film as a whole is lost. Cinematography, at the end of the day, should be an aid in engaging a viewer into the film and not a distraction. The main flaw of this film is that every single scene visually shouts out too loud, tries too hard, one can't find any rhythm or harmony. Plot, characters, messages all become subordinate to the visual. It was like watching a music video without being able to hear the music.
It's a sequence of impressively stylish B/W footages. If there is anything more than that, it's very well hidden behind all the flash. -
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Pi
Found it to be really dull. I couldn't quite cope with the monotonus tone of the main guy. Fairly boring really....
Critics' reviews (6)
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In this fascinating thriller, Sean Gullette plays a reclusive maths genius who becomes obsessed with the notion that everything in the universe can be broken down into mathematics and therefore follows a predictable pattern. Shot in black-and-white and marking the feature debut of Darren Aronofsky, it's filled with complex issues (can Gullette's “gift” be used to decipher the true name of God?) and makes arresting use of disorientating camerawork to depict Gullette's distorted view of the world. But, despite its many virtues, Pi becomes increasingly hard to follow because of an overload of intricate ideas that could baffle even Stephen Hawking.
-
"...Ingeniously cerebral, playfully twisted....A tour-de-force of grainy, high-contrast black-and-white photography and inventive editing and sound design..."
-
Holed up in his Chinatown apartment, electronics whiz Max (Gullette, who, with the director and producer, came up... read more on Time Out
-
"...[A] mesmerizing mind-bender.....Aronofsky is a visionary with a raw talent..."
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"...[Aronofsky] manages to showcase plenty of style..."
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"...Truly an original..."
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
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Pi
Low-budget film that won Aronofsky "Best Director" at 1998's Sundance Film Festival. Gritty, inventive black-and-white photography drives this story of genius mathematician Max Cohen who is exploring the possible existence of discernible patterns in the stock market. With the aid of Euclid, his ...
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