Noah
2014
D: Darren Aronofsky
**********
Pros: Well-executed epilogue, Excellent score by Clint Mansell
Cons: Disregard for source material, Poor attempt at a
message, Mostly dull
2014 seems to
be a year for religiously provocative movies.
The controversy surrounding the fact that atheist director Darren
Aronofsky has made a Biblical adaptation has been considerable. A few essays have made the argument that
seeing this movie makes one a traitor to the faith. Yet some Christian sources have endorsed the
movie. The Vatican seems to have given
its blessing, but that may have been just to avoid dealing with a Green Eggs and Ham stunt Russell Crowe
kept pulling on the Pope. I really was
not expecting any religious or spiritual insight from this film. I was mostly interested because of my
admiration for Aronofsky as a director.
I love Requiem for a Dream and
I believe that The Fountain is a
criminally underrated masterpiece. I
think his artful and offbeat style of filmmaking would have fit the world of
Noah, which takes place in a time that would be almost unrecognizable to modern
man. While the movie does show some
interesting scenery, I was disappointed by the execution of this film. It seems more like a mainstream blockbuster
in its style. Clint Mansell’s score is
decent, but some parts of it sound like leftover tracks from The Fountain. There are some artfully executed montages,
but that’s about it. And then there are
the rock monsters. Everyone has
commented on them so I’ll make it brief.
They’re goofy, they look like they’re designed to sell toys and they
make me feel like I’m watching “Transformers” every time they’re on screen. They’re also the least of the movie’s
problems.
Aronofsky adds
a lot of foolishness to the story of Noah.
On one hand, it’s a simply story, and adding dramatic occurrences and
conflict is a no-brainer when adapting it.
As a nonbeliever adapting a religious text, he makes a lot of choices
that can only be explained as either obliviousness or spite. In addition to a lot of problems with the
movie’s message and story arcs, it also has some bland dialogue and poor
pacing. The fact that it was based on a
well-known religious story adapted by a non-religious person meant people were
less concerned about spoilers than knowing beforehand how the story was being
modified. Aronofsky stated that he
wanted to movie to possibly take place at any time. The possibility that this is a
post-apocalyptic, primitive world full of fantasy creatures and goofy people
doing goofy things suggests that he drew more inspiration from Adventure Time than he did from the
Bible.
While
religious people have reason to be offended by this film, one common erroneous
criticism is that there’s no God in it.
Actually, the movie constantly refers to “The Creator.” He communicates to Noah through visions. We see physically impossible miracles. We see freakin’ angels turned into rock monsters and back again. It seems to me this movie has God in it. It’s like complaining that a story has
someone say a character is “gone” instead of “dead” as if it’s not the exact
same thing. In fact, if Aronofsky had
chosen to depict this event in a secular way without divine intervention, it
might have been an interesting viewpoint to watch and far less insulting than
what we got.
The movie
begins with a young Noah and his father Lamech (Marton Csokas) gathering food
when a gang from Cain’s tribe murders the latter. Cut to an adult Noah (Russell Crowe) gathering
with his son Ham. Ham tries to pick a
single flower, and the movie wastes no time in making FernGully look exemplary in its moderation and subtlety. Noah corrects him for picking a flower, saying
they should only take what they need.
The radicalism gets worse when a wounded scaly dog-thing enters pursued
by some of Cain’s tribe. After Noah
fights them, a defeated enemy asks him what he wants and he replies while
holding a weapon, “Justice.” Wait, did
Noah just murder a guy in cold blood just for hunting for food? Well, I realize he probably had to leave no
survivors to notify their allies, but that’s still pretty messed up. While cremating the dog-thing, Ham asks Noah
what those people were doing, and when told that they were planning to eat the
dog, he innocently asks why. Noah
self-righteously replies, “Because they think it makes them stronger.”
Okay, I know
that Darren Aronofsky is apparently a vegan and wanted to express that in his
work. He has every right to. But rewriting Ancient History and human
biology in the name of that message is buffoonery. I understand the belief that harming animals
is wrong and should be minimalized in light of modern advances in nutritional
science. I understand that the
meat-and-fat-based diet we have evolved to crave is not as compatible with our
current sedentary lifestyle as we’d like.
However, vegan diets are mostly feasible nowadays thanks to modern
science. Vegetarianism, let alone
veganism, was difficult in ancient times.
Perhaps some farming could help address this problem, but Noah and his
family show no evidence that they are nothing more than just gatherers. It’s a wonder how Noah’s children survived
infancy considering this. Aronofsky
gives us a message, but makes no effort to justify it in a setting that is
inconvenient for his opinion to say the least.
You have to work within the limits of the setting you have chosen. Show your characters at least limiting their
exploitation of animals. At least try to
acknowledge that digging around and finding f---in’ berries off the ground is not
a complete and balanced diet for Antediluvian Man. To make things even sillier, this is from a
story in the Old Testament, in which animal sacrifice is consistently shown to
be part of Hebrew worship at the time. A
fact which I can’t help but observe The Lion of Judah acknowledges. And can you
guess why casting the descendants of Cain as the evil animal-killers makes no sense?
Well, back to
the story. Noah returns to his wife
Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), who asks him how Ham dealt with the experience, and
he tells her he was “a little too interested.”
What does he mean by that? “Why” is
more than a fair question. This
foreshadows Ham’s being the closest to being corrupted by Cain’s tribe, so I
guess the lesson is “don’t be curious or open-minded.” Noah receives a vague vision about the world
being destroyed by a flood and decides to hike to the mountain home of his
grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) for guidance. Along the way they come across a group of
dead bodies and find one survivor, Ila.
They are chased by Cain-tribesmen and rescued by the Watchers (the rock
monsters voiced by Frank Langella, Mark Margolis and Kevin Durand). They reach Methuselah’s home and have tea
with him, and we find out he is an eccentric wise man archetype. Who doesn’t get enough berries. Noah then has a second vision which implies
that he should build an ark and put animals on it. He uses a seed from the first forest that
Methuselah gives him (a clever touch), and the seed grows into a new forest for
building an ark. Animals gather to the
ark automatically (though watching this happen would have been more entertaining). Noah’s family devises a
knockout gas for them (as opposed to knocking them out with a slingshot), but I’m
not sure how they administer it without knocking themselves out. The movie fast forwards to when Noah’s son
Shem (Douglas Booth) and Ila (Emma Watson) are grown and in love. Ila is barren from old injuries, but someone
must have had sex with her to find that out.
I don’t think you could just tell that by seeing a scar on one’s waist.
All this
activity attracts the attention of Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) and his
tribe. Whereas most movies would give us a chance to know the villain beforehand, Noah immediately tells us that Tubal-Cain was the man who killed Noah's father. Winstone is good in the role, but
his character ends up being too much of a strawman to be a compelling villain. It may sound like a knee-jerk to say that
this movie is anti-human, but when the movie can’t go half an hour without
saying something to the effect of “everything was fine until stupid humans came
along with their technology and civilization,” it’s actually a pretty accurate
description.
The movie doesn’t really stop with these messages, and it
gets worse with Tubal-Cain’s constant speeches about the primacy of humanity,
which I sometimes can’t help but sympathize with. The movie takes this message to the point of
being antiscientific. Perhaps Aronofsky purposely made the movie so scientifically illiterate in order to make some smug statement on religion, but that might be giving the script too much credit. Noah and his
family haven’t progressed beyond being hunter/gatherers, and are framed
as the ideal. Cain’s tribe is depicted
as wasteful and cruel, but they at least believe in some type of technological
progress. The type of progress that you,
you know, can’t make Vitamin B12 supplements or $125,000,000 movies without. I’m not saying that Aronofsky is some sort of
Luddite, but he clearly was not thinking when he wrote this movie. In fact, the only scene which extolls science
is a visually beautiful scene in which Noah retells the seven days of Creation
while the picture shows a time-elapsed formation of earth and evolution of
man. The “seven days’” not literally
being seven days is not a new idea, however.
While building
the ark, he scouts Tubal-Cain’s settlement and witnesses just how violent these
people are. This, combined with his
radically misanthropic worldview, convinces him that humanity should die off
with this family. He treats this as the
will of God even though God gave him no such order. You can’t really say this is a logical
deduction from the fact that you can’t promulgate a species from one nuclear
family because the animals would have the same problem. As a result, this decision seems rather capricious. Ham (Logan Lerman), who does not have a
girlfriend like Shem’s to love, is understandably nonplussed by this. He ventures into Tubal-Cain’s camp, finds Na’el
(Madison Davenport) and takes her with him.
At this point, the rain has started to come down, and Shem and Ila look
for Ham. Ila finds Methuselah looking
for berries (it’s a running joke) and he blesses her relationship with Shem,
causing her to become fertile. This
makes Ila very horny and she
immediately runs to Shem and bangs him.
Hilariously, they look embarrassed when they return empty-handed to
Noah, who decides to find Ham himself.
Ham and Na’el are fleeing from the mob that is ready to raid the ark,
when Na’el gets her leg caught in a trap.
Noah returns and, because Tubal-Cain’s mob is upon them, takes Ham,
leaving Na’el to get violently trampled to death. Noah and ham reach the ark, and the rock
monsters fend off the mob until the flood happens, but Tubal-Cain manages to
sneak onto the vessel. Methuselah dies
in the deluge immediately after finally enjoying a berry. Like a cartoon character.
Ham encounters
Tubal-Cain in the ark and, forgetting that Tubal-Cain is arguably more
responsible for Na’el’s death than Noah) promises to help him while the latter
helps himself to some now-extinct animal meat.
Meanwhile, Noah finds out that Ila is pregnant and vows to murder the
infant if it is a girl (surprise! It turns out to be two girls!). He clashes with
his family, and Jennifer Connelly gives a great performance as Naameh tells Noah
she will not love him if he goes through with the killing. This clearly is not conflict enough, which is
why we need Tubal-Cain to be hanging out on the ark stuffing his face and
probably masturbating until he can get in a short fight with Noah that we know
he’s going to lose. During this fight,
Ham decides to redeem himself by saving Noah while rejecting him
emotionally. Noah then tries to kill his
grandchildren, but decides he cannot go through with it.
Aronofsky had
understandable motivation for all this nonsense. First, he wanted to add some complexity to
the protagonist. This does not work
because Noah’s motivations for infanticide are neither logical nor
identifiable.
 |
| Also, I can't look at this screencap and picture anything other than a belch or sand person noises coming out of his mouth. |
Secondly, he wanted to establish tension between Noah and
Ham which would explain the former’s rejection of the latter’s bloodline (Gen
9:21-25). Noah’s unforgiveable offense
against Ham was not having time to save Na’el’s life. Funny, I’d say Shem and Ila have far more
reason to hold a grudge considering Noah tried to murder their children. I
guess it all depends on how well things happened to turn out for whom.
This leads up
to what I must admit is a very well-executed last five minutes of the
film. Upon finding land, Noah secludes
himself and attempts to drown his sorrow and guilt, as per the aforementioned
Bible verses. When Shem and Japeth (Leo
McHugh) cover his nakedness, Ham only looks on disapprovingly while Noah breaks
down in tears (in the Bible, these roles are reversed). Ham then ventures off by himself to find his
own fate, suggesting that there are other survivors out there. Noah eventually blesses the continuation of
man and is met with God’s rainbow. It’s
actually a really good ending that deserves a better movie preceding it.
Noah was visually well-done. The acting was solid, even from Russell Crowe
and his Russell Croweness. Turning it
into a tract was a bad idea, but even without the potential offensiveness, the
product was not much more exciting than 2010’s Robin Hood, and a big disappointment from the director. And, yes, I do think it is fair to say that this movie is at least a bit insulting to us believers.
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