Pi | Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis | A Great And Disturbing Film

Pi | Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis | Almost perfect.

DVDs:

	Pi Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis Lions Gate, 1999 average customer review:based on 462 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Great And Disturbing Film

Pi is a film that will most likely stay with you long after you watch it. Darren Aronofsky (Requium For A Dream) created an entertaining experimental film with Pi. A very dark movie (aside from being black and white) with a great techno score, and extremley bizzare scenes and images. Pi is a great movie, but I dont think it's so deep and powerful as some reviews stated. There was a few things that went wrong with Pi that I wont go into, but as with most filmmakers making no budget films all their mistakes suddenly become artistic expression. Anyway if you enjoyed Eraserhead or similar films like it then you cant go wrong with Pi.

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Almost perfect.

Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie!

It took me more than a dozen views to start figuring out how everything was connected. What's with the bugs? What's that stickey stuff in his mainfraim? How are his breakdowns and paranoia connected to his work, and what is the quite white place he ends up in? All the weird stuff is chaos slipping in between the seams, chaos which he thinks he's fighting against... at first. Max had a thread of a connection to the great infinite divine, that which human beings are not wired to see. He does see it though, glimpses at first, then the whole thing. It almost kills him. It's the classic Iccarus story, except that Max survives and finds happiness at the end. I disagree that the end is a 'cop out' or incongruous-- it is the cumulation of every frame of the film... it is the point! He looks at the leaves blowing in the trees, *doesn't* see a pattern, can't see a pattern, doesn't want to see a pattern-- and, for the very first time, he smiles.

Why isn't it perfect? I would have like to see more actual math. The concepts are there, but the details aren't. Not a big deal. "A Beautiful Mind" put a lot of effort into putting real math into the plot, and I like that.

Also, some of the details didn't connect. For example, the 'name of god' (216-letters long), and the 216-digit number his computer spits out before dying, wouldn't necessarily be connected. The system they explained indicated that different numbers of integers would represent a single letter in Hebrew. Like 42 would be a letter, and 2 would be different letter. So, the number of digits wouldn't really equal the number of letters... Darren kind of painted himself into a corner there. He wisely chose not to make the punch line of the movie a complex number theory proof, and I didn't even notice (much less become annoyed about) this detail until viewing #15. Up until then, every time I saw it something different would finally make sense.

Thus, five stars. I'm inclined to give five stars to any movie that makes me think longer than the credits roll, so this one should get many many more.

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I Like It

With a reference to Jewish mysticism, this black and white movie perfectly highlights a psychotic world of a talented mathematician attempting to unlock world mysteries "Chaos"
(see: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A32NUR740CAUFR/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-6854701-1987133?ie=UTF8 )
is much close to resolve.

Although mixing a Hasidic community with the Wall Street sharks might usher into unwelcome parallels, I like authors' depiction of New York environment -busy streets,sub,neighbouring- very much.

I'm sure you can find this used and cheap

Pi is one of those movies that wonderfully speaks to the psuedo-intellectual in all of us, and gives us comfort in the idea that somehow we might actually be able to gain understanding of this mess around us.
Now, don't take that as a insult, the films by this director(I can't spell his last name off the top of my head right now, sorry) are quite fun and enjoyable. Actually, i'm sure quite sure why i'm writing this now, as I'm not sure i know anyone who hasn't seen this movie, and who doesn't suddenly turn into a religious scholar and mathamatican upon discussing it. I'm not going to discuss the plotline, i'm sure you've already read the main review.
But I will say that the movie is very entertaining and well put together. Not everyone seems to like the black and white, but I think it gives this film character. The movie is fairly creative with its characters and set up, and the story itself is interesting and keep enough pace to not lose the average movie goers attention.
So in short, see it.

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