Todd Solondz made his mark with the 1996 art house hit Welcome To The Dollhouse, establishing himself as a distinctive, opinionated voice in independent American cinema. This was confirmed with 1998's Happiness and his next film Storytelling, both of which lifted the lid on suburban normality to reveal the sad perversities of everyday life. The controversy they earned is sure to extend to Palindromes, a story in which Solondz addresses - among other subjects - paedophilia and abortion.

There's so much going in Palindromes that it's bound to provoke discussion. Does it give you satisfaction that it's not one of those films that's instantly forgotten?

I don't really see much correlation between movies that you really like and movies that you merely remember. Some of the worst movies are the ones that stick with me the longest, and I don't know why certain things stick with me, it's unpredictable. Why do you remember certain things? How is it that they key into parts of your brain?

Why is this film called Palindromes?

On a loosely metaphorical level we become palindromes in that we are unchanging in some sense. For all that love or sorrow or joy may alter us, it's all filtered through a constant core. One of the characters in the film sees this as a kind of doom. I, on the other hand, take a sunnier view. I think if one is to acknowledge one's limitations, failures, failings and flaws this can be a good thing. It's a freeing, liberating thing to accept and acknowledge this about oneself. And also this movie has a looking glass, Alice in Wonderland aspect to it in the way that one part of the world bounces off the other. The film's heroine Aviva is suspended between the pro-choice family that gives no choice and the pro-life family that kills. Somewhere in the middle she finds a kind of love, and that's something of the dynamic that's played out here.

There is something perverse about pro-life groups who are happy to kill to make their point, isn't there?

It's easier to love the unborn because they can't talk back to you. I'm all for not practicing cruelty on animals, but it's easier to love an animal when they can't disagree with you. To be an abortionist in the States is just like being a policeman or a fireman, because you put your life on the line. The pro-lifers have been winning the war in the States because how many people want to go into that line of work knowing that if they do they will be targeted?

Both sides believe they are right, so isn't it a question of perspective?

On your deathbed, even if you're Stalin, you will think you'd been dealt a difficult hand but you did the best you could with it. You'll believe that you're basically a good person. Nobody thinks, "I'm a schmuck, I'm a hateful, horrible, vile creature!" People have to believe, it's kind of a human need. Self deception and narcissism are survival mechanisms. I'd say the problem some people may have with my movie is that it doesn't function in the way that other movies do, where you're asked to identify with a beautiful protagonist.

This brings us back to the beginning, Palindromes is a film that demands some effort from its audience, isn't it?

When you have a handsome guy who says the right thing, who does the right thing and ultimately behaves heroically, having made this identification with him you feel much better about yourself. It's a wonderful feeling. It's a narcissistic pleasure. But when you go to see my films you don't get that narcissistic pleasure because there are no heroes and villains - everything is fraught with ambiguity. You have to suss it out for yourself.

Palindromes is released in UK cinemas on Friday 6th May 2005.