A tour-de-force of grainy, high-contrast black-and-white photography and inventive editing and sound design, π at times ventures to the limits of cinematic legibility.

Aronofsky, who has parlayed this movie's Sundance success into two Hollywood deals, is that rare indie filmmaker who doesn't want to make hip romantic sitcoms. He's a genuine experimenter with a spooky visual style.

We share Max's feelings of imminent psychological disintegration as the film probes our own insecurity in the face of the eternal. Maths meets millennial doom in one of the decade's true originals.

An esoteric magical mystery tour of what the human mind is meant to know and the consequence of pushing the fragile human psyche to assimilate what is, inherently, beyond its understanding.