Alvaro Augustin, Priscilla Bertin, Mariela Besuievski, Verane Frediani, Gerardo Herrero, Alex de la Iglesia, Kevin Loader, Elena Manrique, Franck Ribiere, Rosa Romero
Screenplay:
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Cameraman:
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Composer:
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Cast:
Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling, Julie Cox, Burn Gorman, Anna Massey, Jim Carter, Alan David, Dominique Pinon, Tim Wallers, James Weber-Brown,...
Runtime:
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MPAA Rating:
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In Theaters:
18 January 2008 Spain
Distribution:
Audio Visual Enterprises, Bazuca Films, Contender Entertainment Group, Odeon Sky Filmworks, Pachamama Cine, THINKFilm, United International Pictures
November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at the University of Oxford who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis supervisor. He idolises Seldom and has learnt all about him. He takes rooms in Oxford at the house of an old lady who is an old friend of Seldom. Also in the house is the old lady's daughter, who is her full-time carer, and a musician by occupation.
In a public lecture, Seldom quotes Wittgenstein's Tractatus to deny the possibility of absolute truth. Hoping to impress his idol, Martin disputes this, asserting his faith in the absolute truth of mathematics: "I believe in the number pi." Seldom humiliates him, ridiculing his arguments and making him look foolish in front of the audience. Disillusioned, Martin decides to abandon his studies and goes to his office to collect his belongings. There, he encounters his office-mate, a disillusioned mathematician Podorov, who also failed to become a student of Seldom's.
Martin then returns to his digs, where he finds Seldom arriving to visit his old friend, the old lady. The two men enter the house together and find Martin's landlady murdered. Seldom tells the police that he had received a note with his friend's address marked as "the first of a series".