p follows the tribulations of Max Cohen, genius mathematician and lightning calculator, whose life, it seems, contains nothing more than a sequence of them. He is tormented by attacks of headaches so severe that his nose bleeds, and tormented by being unable to find a cure for them. While searching for the magical number that would explain the stock market, he is tormented by hallucinations, coupled with a thread of paranoia. He also suffers from poor social skills, but that relatively common ailment torments him little, if at all.

Max Cohen, our tortured genius, has certain assumptions – that nature, the universe around him, is made up of numbers; and that numbers can be understood; that, therefore, the universe can be understood. Hence his search for the magic number, which seems to lie not just behind the stock market, but inside the Jewish Torah, a hidden numerical code from God, and behind that most mythic number of all, pi itself. From Chaos Theory (or Complexity Theory; a branch of math that actually does explain the stock market, or proves that it can never be explained, depending on how you look at it), the film throws in an esoteric mix consisting of Go (Weiqi), Kabbalistic Numerology and a touch of corporate greed.

p is an artsy independent film, you can tell because it’s all in grainy black and white. The effect actually works very well, along with its electronica techno-trance soundtrack and jaunty hand-held camera angles, to convey an impression of the surrealistic nature of Max’s reality. What is possibly most riveting about the film is the way it all comes together, how a mathematical formula becomes a spiral drawn on a newspaper becomes the spiral you see when you pour milk into a cup of coffee. All of a sudden, one shares Max’s belief that the universe, indeed, is all numbers; there, the movie has successfully managed to draw one in.

The first film of Darren Aronofsky, who went on to direct Requiem for a Dream, Pi garnered two nominations and one award (Director’s Award, Dramatic) at Sundance ‘98. As part of that independent thing, Pi only cost $60k, mainly raised in the form of $100 contributions from Aronofsky’s friends. Each contributor later received $150, when the movie was bought by Artisan Entertainment.

On a personal note; while the film did weave in Chaos Theory brilliantly in tense thriller style, in spite of what some reviewers are saying, I did not find this a “fill you with thought” kinda movie any more than I did A Beautiful Mind, which had more or less the same plot but cost a lot more. I also did not like the ending, which was terribly anti-climatic. Check out the Official Site (designed by the film’s star) for quick links on Chaos and Kabbala.