Years before Black Swan, writer/director Darren Aronofsky exploded into the cinematic universe with his surprisingly low-budget film, Pi. The film is a violently thoughtful study in the fine line between madness and genius, as well as a warning about the consequences of failing to respect human boundaries. Filled with thoughtful metaphors, stunning cinematography, recurring themes, and phenomenal acting, Pi is a chilling and creative success for both the film industry and the world of philosophy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay A surreal exploration into the brilliantly deranged mind of math genius Max Cohen, Pi follows Max as he falls victim to an incurable obsession with finding the pattern numbers – or true answer – to the otherwise chaotic universe. Believing that this 216-digit pattern exists in all aspects of the world – in the stock market, in the numerical translation of the Torah, and in the irrational number pi – Max descends into a frenzy of deprecation. He becomes completely obsessed with the thought of understanding life and consequently becomes consumed by this search for the unknowable. Paranoid and lonely, Max at first seems like the most unlikely hero in any story. Protected from the rest of the world by three different locks on the door of his cheap apartment and harboring an involuntary habit of shaking violently in front of strangers, Max is surprisingly reclusive, to the point of hinting at social disorder. Indeed, it is perhaps this very confinement that ultimately drives him to madness. His reluctance to share his knowledge or skills with anyone, including the Hassite Jew Lenny (who wants him for spiritual purposes) and the Wall Street investor Marcy (who, similarly, wants Max to predict market prices equity), pushes him into a fatal attitude of himself. -importance and greed. His desire to keep the answer to himself leads him to believe that he is the “chosen one,” as he himself states in the film. Because of this astonishing transformation in superiority and haughtiness, it is logical to assume that the elusive 216 digits in the pattern represent divinity. Lenny not only explains the correspondence in Jewish myth (the number is said to be the true name of God), but it can be seen in Max's attitude as he gets closer and closer to the discovery. He becomes selfish and arrogant (“I understand it and I will see it. I have been chosen!”) and begins to see himself as a real god, superior to the other characters due to their evident inability to find the answer on their own. However, it is also quickly apparent that the chase is turning Max into a dying man both physically and figuratively mutilating his brain. He suffers terrifying hallucinations and becomes mentally unstable. The film depicts several scenes in which Max teases and prods the supposed illusion of a brain, illustrating his totally tortured attempt to find an answer. The mutilation grows in intensity over time and eventually he is overwhelmed by the sheer gravity of the knowledge and is driven to perform a lobotomy on his own brain. The ant, which appears to represent the ultimate number, is also shown several times throughout the film, always in scenes that highlight the importance of the pattern. For example, the ant crawls into the mainframe of Max's supercomputer, Euclid, when it crashes with the 216-digit "bug", and sits idly on the wall when Max accurately predicts stock market prices. More importantly, the ant is also often shown crawling along the brain. This metaphorical closeness seems to suggest that knowledge is within the reach of the mind – and yet.