It may be difficult to conceive of a feature film more audacious than Pi, Darren Aronofsky's directorial debut, but his follow-up offering, Requiem For A Dream, may be the one. "This film is very experimental," Aronofsky tells Moving Pictures, "even more so than Pi."

Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jnr, Requiem For A Dream was shot over a period of 40 days in Coney Island, Brooklyn, not far from Aronofsky's birthplace. Aronofsky had been an admirer of Selby's work since his college days, and cites the writer as the catalyst that sparked his own literary endeavours. "I was at Harvard," he recalls, "and feeling a little out of my element, as I was a public school kid from Brooklyn. I picked up Last Exit To Brooklyn and, after reading it, I began to write."

Entranced by Selby's bleak view of the world, Aronofsky wanted to read more, and moved on to Requiem For A Dream. "I took it with me on vacation to read," he continues, "but I had to stop halfway through. The ideas he was dealing with were just too close to some issues that I was dealing with intellectually at the time, and I felt like it was interfering with my own thoughts."

Aronofsky gave the book to his producer, who fell in love with it, and the journey to a final celluloid version commenced. There was clearly a higher budget this time, but the director says that one of the biggest differences between Pi and Requiem was in the casting.

Featured in Requiem are both the veteran Ellen Burstyn and well-known up-and-comers Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans. "Working with stars is easier, in some ways. They can actually act," he laughs.

Requiem For A Dream tells the story of Sara Goldfarb, a middle-aged woman who lives alone in Brooklyn's Coney Island. Her obsessive hope is to be invited to appear on her favourite TV show, which explains her decision to go on a crash diet ­ she must fit into her fancy red dress when the invitation comes. Her son, Harry, is struggling with drug addiction. Harry, his girlfriend Marion and his friend Tyrone try to escape their grim reality by constructing childish visions of a paradise on earth. In search of a better life, the four characters find themselves in an inescapable downward spiral that spins them through more anguish and self-destruction.

"At the core of the film is the idea of addiction versus the human spirit," Aronofsky says, "and, according to Selby, all addictions are the same. I agree with that completely ­ whether it's cigarettes, coffee, TV, sex, drugs, food or even obsessively not eating. The origin of the addiction is basically the same."

The success of Pi has put Aronofsky in a league that almost any director, be he private or public school-educated, would treasure. Rumours are rampant that he is being pegged as the director of the
next edition of the Batman franchise. Queried on that possibility, Aronofsky laughs. "I'm going to have to come up with an answer to that one," he says, before explaining in an even voice, "we've talked about it. That's all there really is to say, right now."

With the overwhelming noir aspects of Batman, it may not, indeed, be so much of a stretch. Who knows? Batman could stumble upon the truth of existence through the stock market or explore
his addiction to wearing weird suits and zooming around town in the Batmobile.

Jeffrey R Sipe