Darren Aronofsky’s debut film Pi (1998) remains one of the most striking explorations of obsession, mathematics, and madness in modern cinema. Shot in grainy black-and-white with a shoestring budget, it is both a psychological thriller and a surrealist journey into the fragile mind of a man who believes the universe itself can be decoded into numbers. Surrealism in Pi From the opening scenes, Aronofsky establishes a surreal atmosphere that blurs the line between reality and hallucination. Sudden flashes of imagery, distorted sound design, and frantic editing evoke the disorientation of Max Cohen, the film’s protagonist. His tiny, claustrophobic apartment and the chaotic city around him become extensions of his mental state—a surreal maze where logic and madness spiral together. The surrealism is not decorative but thematic: it reflects how a brilliant mathematician’s obsession with order paradoxically drags him into chaos. The recurring migraines, the visions of pulsing veins...