Darren Aronofsky is, in my opinion, the greatest contemporary filmmaker working today. I know many smart people might disagree, and I'm ready to joust them ;)

But seriously, his work resonates with me on an intensely sensuous, spiritual, and conceptual level. The sheer corporeal and cerebral nature of his films embodies what I find to be the most meaningful emotions, from hope to despair, pain, and devastation. He’s uncompromising, focusing on profoundly broken characters with damaged bodies and minds, then reviving them in the most eerie and unsettling ways.

There’s a familiar pattern in Aronofsky’s work that strikes me as both humanistic and spiritually resonant:

1). Punishing Wickedness
2). Mourning for the Oppressed

In Requiem for a Dream, I saw the terrible effects of those punished by drug addiction and mourned for their helplessness.

In Black Swan, I saw the punishment of suffering from mental perfectionism and mourned for those who share this struggle.

In Noah, I saw how human depravity is often punished with a “flood” and mourned our inability to cooperate better.

In The Fountain, I saw how grieving over the loss of loved ones feels like punishment and mourned the deep desire to keep this party alive.

In The Wrestler, I saw a washed-out athlete punished for his rugged, rockstar lifestyle and mourned the familial wreckage he left behind.

In Mother!, I saw violence toward women and the earth punished with a fiery apocalypse and mourned our mistreatment of women and the earth.

This pattern is deeply moving. Aronofsky repeatedly forgoes the pleasure of the text to punish it, mourn with it, wherever it occurs. He holds up a mirror and asks us to weep, wail, and mourn over the brokenness of this world. It’s profoundly spiritual stuff.