43. Pi (1998) - Dir. Darren Aronofsky
My first experience with Pi was a serendipitous one. I was living in So. Cal. at the time of its theatrical release, a bit down on my luck. I was also heavily getting into the work of Philip K. Dick. Alfred Bester, J.G. Ballard, and Rudy Rucker. The books and stories by these authors became my escape, and that I found escape into worlds much more messed up than my own was a cathartic experience. Needless to say, I was clamoring for a shared cinematic experience that would compliment the kind of fiction I was reading. I wanted some real science fiction cinema.
Now for some semantics. I subscribe to how the Jazz Writers of SF defined the genre. Bester, Dick, Lem, Ballard, and their contemporaries, thought of SF stories as being stories about ideas, and if these ideas were removed from the narratives they would loose their relevance. SF stories are not just space opera; they are more than simple adventure yarns with laser-guns and robots. In this style of speculative fiction (a term some SF authors prefer), the setting and the characters are interchangeable, so long as the central idea the author is trying to convey remains intact. I should also point out that when I say “real science fiction” I don't mean hard science fiction, or SF where the science is fully grounded in reality. The ideas presented should examine a fundamental truth about humankind, but by removing the science a few steps beyond our reality, the author is able to establish a unique perspective through which he or she can more fully examine who we are and why we act the way we do.
Pi is such a film. It is a story about patterns, and about humankind's desire to find order in chaos, our desire to make sense of things. Pi examines this desire through the use of mathematics, number theory, numerology, and cryptic languages. Is the math in Pi sound, is it legit? I don't know, I am not a mathematician, a number theorist, or a numerologist, nor do I study ancient Hebrew. It could be nothing but a bunch of psycho-babble-flim-flam, and that's fine, it matters not. What I do know is that the “science” in the film, the idea behind the narrative, works within the context of the story being told, and, more importantly, it is there to examine a fundamental truth about humankind. Often times, in these kinds of SF stories, the “science” is nothing but a Macguffin, an arbitrary concept on which the author hangs his ideas and themes (for a perfect example of this see the use of mind/body displacement in Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch).
Pi works on a variety of levels beyond merely being exemplary of its genre. Aronofsky creates a tense film built with concrete, cinematic language. The film is short and gets to the point. If this film were a work of literature, Strunk and White would be proud; it omits needless “words.” In many ways, Aronofksy constructs the film like a deejay might compose a hip-hop song. Through the use of samples, loops, and familiar riffs, he crafts a film with a rhythmic foundation upon which the narrative's milieu is built. The grainy, black and white photography also does wonders to bolster the films mathpunk aesthetics, a trait that must have made Rudy Rucker smile.
Pi says a lot without needing much at all, and its sparse world built with shadowy sets and stark production helps to foster Max Cohen's, the film's protagonist, feelings of isolation. After staring at the sun as a kid, despite his mother's words of warning, Max becomes inflicted with incapacitating headaches and an unhealthy fascination with numbers. While searching for patterns with which to map the fluctuation of the stock market, Max's quest of desperation leads him down a path populated with Hasidic Jews searching for codes in the Torah and rogue bankers working in tandem with a shadow government. Max's determination is expertly captured by Aronofsky, and, as the character spirals down into a void of total self-destruction, the film reflects his persona in all of its capacity; the aesthetics of the film, along with Clint Mansell's incredible score, mirror Max's personality, and the two share a symbiotic relationship that further builds upon the core ideas.
Pi is a film in which every facet comes together to craft an engaging experience. It builds in suspense and paranoia like a well composed piece of music. Each peak and valley is perfectly paced, and when the finale erupts in an explosion of of absurd discoveries, revelations, and violence, the audience is dragged tooth and nail down a path of hellish situations. Aronofsky excels at crafting these kinds of films, films that start small and then snowball into a tumultuous climax thick with atmosphere and tension. Like the best stories written by Ballard, Bester, Dick, and Rucker, Pi focuses on a single idea, and then examines how this central idea impacts the characters and their surroundings. In this regard, the film is an A-class example of speculative fiction, and exists on a level few science fiction films do.
