Over the course of just four films, Darren Aronofsky has covered an impressive amount of ground: from inside the disturbed head of the maths-obsessed hero of his 1998 debut Pi, through the dark basement hovels of the Coney Island heroin addicts who frequent his 2000 addiction drama Requiem for a Dream, to the far reaches of space in his big-budget art-movie The Fountain. Last year brought him back to Earth, to the blue-collar New Jersey of The Wrestler, a fiercely poignant, beautifully judged account of an ageing wrestler’s final comeback fight that gave a second wind to Mickey Rourke’s career. Among the loud praise that The Wrestler received were claims the film marked a return to the indie cinema roots of Pi, a starkly expressive hybrid of horror and advanced mathematics that Aronofsky made for a reported $60,000. But if the films that followed this admired debut were on bigger canvases, the Brooklyn-born director has never relinquished his dogged independence and singular vision. Aronofsky’s subject matter is thrillingly challenging: he parlayed the success of Pi into adapting Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby Jr's bleak vision of a group of friends succumbing to heroin, creating a film whose unsparing vision of addiction has few equivalents in recent Hollywood film. And he followed that with his visually stunning The Fountain, a portrait of a love affair that leaps from the 16th century to the present-day to the future, and resists the tug of conventional narrative to reflect upon ageing and romantic passion with heartfelt directness. Based on his own graphic novel, this was intensely personal cinema made on a grand and lavish scale. If the pared-down, gripping immediacy of The Wrestler was a change from the high-concept challenges of The Fountain, there remains a set of common concerns throughout Aronofsky’s work: searing visuals, a keen sympathy for characters governed by obsessive, often self-destructive behaviour, an appreciation for the sensual impact of sound-design, and a superb ear for the expressive potential of music (Clint Mansell is a continuing collaborator). Along the way, Aronofsky has flirted with some interesting studio assignments like The Watchman and Batman Begins, and he has a rare ability to find seriousness and depth in pop culture perennials: the gaudy razzmatazz of pro-wrestling is reworked into sombre tragedy in The Wrestler, whereas Jewish mysticism, high-art and experimental expressionism combine with visceral B-movie horror in Pi. His latest film is a reboot version of 1987's RoboCop: this promises to be quite something.