Pi 15th Anniversary Blu-ray review

• 18th Jul 2013

Darren Aronofsky is what you might call a divisive director. Hailed by some as a visionary auteur, whose stylistic idiosyncrasies are brilliant, and vilified by others for a preference of style of substance and far too fond of navel-gazing. Pi is Aronofsky’s directorial debut, produced independently in black and white, the starkness of which contrasting sharply with the surrealist nature of the subject matter and plot. Re-released on Blu-ray for the fifteenth anniversary, it is still the same strange, attention-grabbing film, losing very little since its release, despite a much wider awareness of number theory, mysticism and patterns in the natural world thanks to abortions such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Obsessive, socially inadequate and almost entirely isolated from normal human interaction, Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is a mathematician who spends his time attempting to make sense of the world through numbers; his current obsession being the stock market. When his complex computer, Euclid (ancient Greek mathematician and father of geometry), suddenly packs up after spewing out a seemingly random long-digit number, Max is disheartened, but when it transpires that his formulations are being mirrored in real life, he realises he may be close to a discovery of vast significance. This being a thriller, albeit a psychological thriller, Max is suddenly surrounded by outside factions who are all too interested in his breakthrough and finds himself the target of both Wall Street heavies and a strange cabbalistic sect.

As always, Aronofsky (as both writer and director) is very much obsessed with the mind, rather than matter. Punctuated by very strange dream sequences and emphasising the recurring patterns Max sees all around him, the film is close to madness at all turns. The fever-dream/hallucination sections are also a known quantity for any Aronofsky fan, but for those new to the director, they can cause some irritation and can be distracting. But this is a study of a man on the brink of insanity, dogged by hideously painful migraines and fearsome paranoia, so the warped dreams and hallucinations are part and parcel of the disintegration of a mind stretched to its capacity.

It would be very easy to disappear into the film’s varied, complex mathematical and religious symbolism. Fascinating theories though they may be, they are definitely on the ‘far out’ side of things and, granted, may stretch the imagination in terms of actually being actually believable. For some, it may be too much to ask, but Aronofsky makes it very easy to believe that a deep-seated obsessive-compulsive character, even if all the shadowy conspiracies and mystical meanings are all in Max’s mind.

The mostly little-known character actors are excellent on the whole, though not necessarily a very likable bunch.  The soundtrack, with pieces from Aronofsky’s now long-time co-conspirator Clint Mansell, is fittingly eerie and jarring – an almost perfect reflection of Max’s fractured mind.

Love it or hate it, Pi  is certainly a brave film, especially from one so new to the medium. Aronofsky does not shy away from making it as dense and as academic as possible, whilst being very aware of the frailties of the human condition. It is a film that richly deserve this glossy new re-release.

 Hannah Turner