It’s an assumption, an article of faith, but it always bears repeating: every best-of list is a subjective snapshot, bound by what we could or would see, the genres to which we gravitate, the last-minute audibles called because we simply can’t bear to leave out a title.
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors.”
The delirious excess and unstable allegories of Darren Aronofsky’s mother! make it both a work of auteurist genius and a second-year term paper by someone who just discovered Borges. Its uncompromising commitment to fever dream logic places it high on the list of Aronofsky’s most essential deep-dives into shallow pools, while also courting charges of both insulting obviousness and self-adoring incomprehensibility.
Despite its huge budget, action movie trappings, and scriptural focus, there was never any real concern that American auteur Darren Aronofsky was going to make a boring sandal-clad, desert epic. The person behind Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan is seemingly incapable of approaching any material without transforming it into a “Darren Aronofsky project” in the process.