Last updated on August 24, 2014
Noah is one heck of a movie. At best, we could call it a big budget, pre-summer monolithic tent-pole Biblical fan-fiction epic. At worst, it displays an incredibly charming tonal inconsistency probably most exacerbated by the length of the film. My feelings on this are quite divided on the subject – on the one hand, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. On the other hand, it has so many problems that I can’t just ignore when I write in glowing terms about its elements.
Still, what exactly do Christians do with Noah, the Darren Aronofsky film? Well, first, we should realize that this retelling takes place not from the Christian tradition. If I had to guess, this is a very Jewish film, more akin to the free-form nature of rabbinical tradition than any debt to Christianity. The signs all point to this: the use of the Book of the Watchers, the free-flowing imagery, the ambiguity of God’s messages (rabbis interpret God’s words in long talmudic passages, after all), and the clear signposts to the good and evil impulses within humankind. It also fits into the tradition of environmental protection and respect for creation that were even the hallmark of the Pentateuch:
When you besiege a city a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you? Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down, that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.
Deuteronomy 20:19-20
I am sure that any person with Bible knowledge could see the Noah story in many ways – it’s not like the Biblical version presents intense detail which you would need to bring it to the silver screen. Why does God clear the earth? What kind of wickedness did the people of Cain represent? We only know the barest of details (other than the Nephilim, but that’s a discussion for another day), and so a filmmaker (especially one who isn’t a Christian) will interpret the facts to suit his/her own message. I barely know what “sin” is in this version, though; there’s about one scene or two that gives any real indication of what The Creator seeks to judge. I imagine that comes down to a high budget and PG-13 rating, all said, but I can’t help but think that it relies too heavily on what I think is evil, rather than what Aronofsky thinks is evil.
Then there’s the weird mythological, bizarrely present elements that exist for reasons I cannot divine. Yes, somehow Methusaleh with a flaming sword and Watchers / rock monsters / Transformers makes their way into the film, but for what purpose? They function as a conveient way to have the ark built in ten years or so, but that’s a lot of money for a minor plot point (125 million dollars, to be exact). It’s not like this film looks for complete narrative continuity, either; it seems very impressionistic, with details missing so that the audience can fill in the blanks with the religious or spiritual experiences (or, in the case of atheists, observations) of their own choice.
And that, for me, remains the sticking point for why Noah isn’t a particularly great film. Some might call it ambitious, but I call it “unfocused”. It bounces from genre to genre, going from a war movie to a survivor’s guilt psychodrama with the drop of a hat. It introduces things, then completely ignores them, or has things happen that aren’t explained nor do they make any sense (why can Methusaleh heal people? Huh?). Aronofsky and his screenwriters simply don’t know what they want to say, and their lack of a message muddles whatever possible meaning that this interpretation of a classic tale could actually have.
Now, as far as being a completely engaging and entertaining film, Noah‘s certainly going to provide you with a super great time. For sheer ambition and craziness, Noah takes the cake. I mean, there’s no better actor to play an obsessed religious zealot than Russell Crowe, right? Crow basically reprises his A Beautiful Mind shtick in more ways than one, looking like a gruff hobo who should live in a cave somewhere. Then he steals some Gladiator (because, duh, Noah fights dudes, what else did you expect?), and they add an antagonist just so Noah can fight Tubal-cain on the ark later. Man, this sounds so stupid when I type this out!
Trust me, though, Noah works on sheer spectacle. The Watchers sound dumb, but who doesn’t love giant imaginary monsters in their epic, right? Most reviewers like them to Lord of the Rings rejects…maybe ents…but they put on a good show. The flood itself just sweeps everything away, and people just drown out there while Noah begins to turn crazy. A live birth of twins takes place on a boat, and Noah’s gonna kill them! If this were any more sensational, I’d be reading the National Enquirer! And could the visions be any more over the top? So many reviewers likened it to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and I suppose that’s an apt comparison. Noah borrows from a whole lot of influences and doesn’t even bother stitching them into something coherent. Heck, the runtime doesn’t help either, and the film definitely goes on for far longer than it should. Even so, it remains engaging from beginning to end.
This is where I say that Noah, on paper, does not work. When I watched it, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it as a slice of fun summer entertainment in the old Hollywood tradition of overblown Biblical movies with tons of white people acting like Middle Eastern people. And also, somehow every single person in the pre-Flood era developed an English accent when England doesn’t exist. The execution matters, and the film hits where it counts. I still found myself emotionally invested and came out utterly satisfied with it. Noah excels not in the letter of the law, but the spirit.
