Cela parle de maths ou pas ! Un film que l'on va détester ou adorer ...

I love how this film makes you feel frantic. The black and white is darker than usual. The sounds are glaring sometimes. The pace that everything happens, makes you feel insane. This film is a masterpiece and shining star to what indie films can be if pushed to the extreme. One of my favorite films and love the story of the insane mathematician. Beautifully told.

A tiring, slightly pretentious indie flick which makes up for its lack of budget with plenty of imagination on the part of writer/director Darren Aronofsky, who mingles such diverse topics as Jewish religion, complex mathematics, Greek mathematicians, mental illness, and Wall Street into a quirky and unpredictable whole. Although the film shares some of the same style and hyper-kinetic energy as something like TETSUO, generally it's a watchable enough movie with strong acting from lead Sean Gullette to make it worth sitting through. The heavy subject of complex number theory and advanced mathematics is an off-putting one, but don't be because the maths stuff is explained for those who aren't good with figures and generally skipped over anyway, shown without being too complex.PI takes in various elements from different genres. The idea that numbers can explain the universe is nothing but straight science fiction (or is it?) whilst there are many surrealist touches like the train station interlude where Gullette chases along a trail of blood only to discover a huge brain - his own - at the end of the line. The various moments in which he experiences horrendous migraines are pretty disturbing to watch, with the soundtrack full of ear-splitting screeches and upsetting visuals on screen (Gullette brains himself, and smashes his head into a wall repeatedly). The intense music used throughout the film adds to the experience and the visual look is made distinctive by some grainy black and white photography.On the downside, the ending is abrupt and something of a foregone conclusion. I was left thinking "was that it?". PI is a film that is deliberately complex and attempts to lose the viewer at every turn, and I don't think any person would be capable of understanding what everything means throughout. Sure, it's different, about 180 degrees from standard predictable Hollywood fare, but does this necessarily make it a good movie? I think not. It's original and the guys who made it were obviously talented, but this is not the masterpiece some people seem to think it is (all I heard about this were rave reviews for four years until I actually saw it).

Being a mathematical person (I have a Masters degree in Statistics) I was intrigued by the premise of the movie but in the end I was left with more questions than answers and was left hanging. The plot includes too much of the mathematical detail (and medical detail, listing all the drugs Cohen was taking!), often coming across as nerdy.The solution seemed too straightforward and practical, with many details lacking here (unlike in the build-up). I thought the final mix might include emotions, basically a more relationship-centric argument, especially as the plot did allude to the potential for something to happen between Cohen and his neighbour, but this didn't come up at all.This all said, Darren Aronofsky is clearly a very talented director. His use of the black&white medium and close-up camera shots in Pi were a stroke of genius - it certainly helped one get into Cohen's mind. Requiem for a Dream is an outstanding movie but Pi fails to deliver because he took on a very weighty and complex subject in his first attempt at a motion picture. The problem lies in the screenplay (which he co-wrote), and not his direction, however.It is interesting to note Aronofsky's use of some of the effects that he would later use in Requiem for a Dream, especially the fast- forward pill-popping sequence which was always worth a chuckle in both movies (in a dark sort of way).