© 2006 William Ahearn

Even for a geek, Max Cohen is one strange dude. He is compulsive, obsessive and relentless in his pursuit of math as the “pattern of life,” the “language of nature,” and the means to understanding all physical nature. One could easily add paranoid except for the fact that people really are after him. Perhaps his paranoia is coincidental to his being a target of Wall Street investors and a cult of Kabalaists who see Max as the direct connection to the key that will make sure-bet stock investments or the messianic age a reality.

Or maybe he just can’t handle the attention of his attractive neighbor.

Sometimes you have to give up the ghost and go with the flow. What can you say about a nerd who, in 1998, is still using a command line interface and 5.25-inch floppies or a computer system that looks like the IT closet running the network for Dante’s second ring of hell?

Poetics have their own rules and “Pi” is a poem of mathematics more than a film about it and it’s a really excellent low-budget (it was made for $60,000), black and white indie film. Dark, moody, and grainy (in a good way), “Pi” is an intellectual thriller without car chases, shoot outs, explosions or any of the other usual accoutrements of the bigger budgeted flicks.

(While watching this film it is impossible to avoid the connection to CBS-TV’s “Numb3rs,” a series about a math genius who has a brother in the FBI and the math genius becomes a consultant to the Bureau (as well as the NSA). The show is produced by the brothers Scott, Tony (“Enemy of the State”) and Ridley (“Blade Runner” and “1984,” the famous Apple Computer commercial) and even features a young Indian woman who has unrequited romantic feelings for the genius. But Charlie Eppes, the TV mathematician, is a self-important university professor and Maximillian Cohen, the protagonist of “Pi,” is a severely damaged individual who is extremely difficult to like. Part of the charm of “Pi” is that the film is presented more or less from Max’s point of view and it’s not always a pretty sight.)

Max is on the hunt for the key when his computer crashes and spits out a 216-digit number. He tosses it away but then realizes that all the stock market fluctuations recorded before the computer crash were right on the money. That 216-digit number is the Rosetta stone of the stock market, the Torah and god knows what else. It is similar to what Albert Einstein sought in his quest for the Unified Field Theory that these days is referred to as The Theory of Everything. Or as string theorist Michio Kaku summed it up: “an equation an inch long that would allow us to read the mind of God.”

In his conversations with his friend and fellow mathematician, Saul Robeson, Max tries to explain the significance of the number. Saul has been through the insanity of Pi (but lies about his discovery of the number) and tells Max that if you look for connections you will find them.

“As soon as you discard scientific rigor,” explains Saul, “you’re no longer a mathematician, you’re a numerologist.”

“Pi” plays with the occult beliefs that collect around computers, math, the game of Go, the stock market and the Kabbala. Computers seem to drive mathematicians to the ranting of numerologists who seem to infer that computers can be capable of almost anything. Consider Saul’s explanation of his discovery of the 216-digit number that appeared when his computer crashed:

“Certain programs,” Saul relates, “cause computers to get stuck in a particular loop. The loop leads to meltdown but just before the crash they become aware of their own structure. The computer has a sense of its own silicon nature and it prints out the ingredients.”

“The computer becomes conscious?” asks Max.

“In some ways . . . I guess,” says Saul.

In most movies this sort of mystification of computers would be annoying but in the surreal poem of “Pi” it works with the dark and bizarre narrative of a brilliant mind flirting with insanity. In this case, the computer is just another eccentric element in a twisted intellectual landscape that creates its own logic and rules and forces the antisocial, headache-ridden, misfit to deal with them.

This is the grittiest, in your face, geek film and a strange trip worth taking.