"La habitación de Fermat" - "Fermat's Room"

Released: 2007
Director: Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopeña
Cast: Lluís Homar; Santi Millán; Alejo Sauras; Elena Ballesteros; Federico Luppi

I think the last time the name Fermat featured in popular(?) entertainment was in the late 90s series Horizon, which broadcast the documentary, Fermat's Last Theorem. Unlike Horizon, the film, La Habitación de Fermat isn't actually about mathematics. It's a clever and stylish suspense thriller which uses the world of higher maths to give itself some intellectual allure.

Put simply, four mathematicians are invited to a seminar to discuss the ultimate mathematical enigma. One is a man in his 20s already feted for having solved Goldbach's Conjecture, although his proof was stolen before he could present it. Another is an inventor who puts his genius to practical use, creating anything from hydraulic presses to novelty popcorn makers. The third man is an elder member of the academia, a chess-player entertaining thoughts of suicide. To complete the quartet we have a woman about whom we know little (more on her later). Each has been sent a badge with the name of a famous mathematician – Galois, Pascal, Hilbert, Oliva – as a sort of anonymising nom-de-math. Once at their destination, they are joined by Fermat for dinner before getting down to business. However, Fermat is then unexpectedly called away and the fun begins. Our four protagonists are sent a puzzle via a PDA; they have one minute to solve it. Solve it they do but not in under a minute and once the minute is up the walls of the room start to move inwards, only stopping when the correct answer is entered in the PDA. It now becomes a race against time to solve the continuing puzzles, figure out who is really behind it all and try to escape before being crushed together.

It's an interesting conceit. The plot is essentially that of a somebody-wants-to-kill-us-all horror film but with all the gore removed (apart from the prospect of their ultimate compaction) and the characters having to rely on their brains. Without wishing to spoil, let's just say that all the characters were invited for a reason and there are a number of twists and turns before the climax.

Incidentally, if you're worried that maths puzzles will a bit dry and unengaging, don't be. The series of puzzles sent via the PDA are more logic problems than advanced calculus. The first example is as follows: A confectioner takes delivery of three boxes of sweets. One of mint sweets; one of aniseed sweets; and one a mixture of the two. Each box is labelled, “Mint”, “Aniseed” or “Mixture”. All the boxes are wrongly labelled. How many sweets must the confectioner remove in order to correctly label all three boxes? You might still find this dry and unengaging. Fair enough. If you do, just focus on the plot and the emerging backgrounds of the characters and the ratcheting suspense. By the way, the answer is: 1.

Back to the woman, codename Oliva. Of the four, she's the only one about whom we are shown nothing prior to the meeting. And what we do find out during the course of their entrapment seems to revolve around sex. Yes, she holds up her end of the puzzle-solving but unlike the others, we're not given anything about her maths credentials, ability, qualifications, etc. Without wishing to come over excessively feminist, I can't help but observe that the sole female character is the least-developed and most disposable of the four. If I were to be charitable, I might consider that perhaps the writers left her deliberately blurry to create suspicion. However, I have to say I didn't think it was her for a moment.

But I wouldn't want that one point to detract from what is otherwise a great film that engages with the brain as well as the gut. The tension winds tighter as the room grows smaller and the characters' deductions creep closer to the truth. It's a film that contrives to flatter your intelligence without actually being that hard to follow.

And, of course, with the added benefit – for those so inclined – that you can jot down the puzzles and annoy your friends with them.