The film is inspired by Yukio Mishima's The Rite of Love and Death and has been well received at international film festivals, but I fear it is destined to be interpreted differently than Frenkel intended.

Frenkel has been quoted as saying, "Our film is about truth. The formula is representative of the truth about the world, which is what I think about mathematics...I think there's a stereotype in the culture. Films like A Beautiful Mind and Pi show mathematicians as social misfits, people on the fringe of mental illness or mentally ill. When I look around my colleagues, I don't see that."

I could not agree more with his concerns about stereotypes of mathematicians in popular culture, but I do not think a story about a suicidal mathematician who carves a formula into his lover's body (as he apparently does in this film to preserve his discovery) is likely to correct anyone's misimpression about mathematicians being mentally ill!

And, I'm not the only one who is failing to appreciate what Frenkel intended as a poetic metaphor about the beauty of mathematics. Prior to its Berkeley opening, the film was the subject of complaints that its portrayal of a male mathematician arguably abusing his passive female lover was sexist and offensive. This prompted the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute to withdraw their sponsorship, despite Frenkel's defense that the mathematician character represents all mathematicians (male and female) and the actress in the film represents not a person but the concept of truth itself (which, in fact, is the translation of her Japanese name).

I should admit that I have not yet seen the movie, and so am basing this entire description only on various written sources I have encountered. If you have seen the film, please correct any errors in my description, vote on its literary quality and mathematical content, and write to me with a better description. (Thanks!)

Rites of Love and Math - the Official Trailer from Edward Frenkel on Vimeo.