Review: ‘Noah’

“Our family has been chosen for a great task: to save the Innocent”

“The Innocent?”

“The Animals”.

Compared to the squeaky-clean Books of Matthew to John, the Bible’s Old Testament is a treasure trove of avarice, debauchery and blood-letting that film-makers have gleefully pillaged for more than a century. Twentieth century cinema is littered with blood-boiling bodice-rippers like Samson and Delilah, King of Kings, David and Bathsheba, numerous retellings of The Ten Commandments…so much so in fact, that (by one account) production code-era Hollywood of the 1950s and 60s saw biblical epics as the best way to get sex and violence onto the screen.

But since the 1920s poor Noah has hardly had a look in. Leading the animals 2×2 into a boat wasn’t sexy enough. Well, Noah’s time has come again at last. In a 21st century where meat-eating man’s folly apparently threatens to end all life on this planet (the Wrath of God, no doubt), suddenly a bearded old vegetarian with a Mission from God can be a hero.

This is an update of a story as old as time itself. We can count on the key plot points thanks to Sunday School or a thousand bedtime stories: he builds it and they come – all that flies, walks, crawls and slithers. But there’s a lot more to this. What we don’t expect is director Aronovsky’s way of taking a simple fantasy and modernising it thematically and creatively to anchor it, seemingly effortlessly, in some sort of believable reality for a modern audience.

How does he do it? With storytelling that is true to the spirit of Noah’s tale, rather than its letter. Aronofsky and script partner Ari borrow characters and situations from the Biblical narrative that have to do with Noah directly, but work subtlety together here to give the story new dramatic weight. Little-known characters like Noah’s grandfather Methusela add warmth and humanity.  The chief antagonist, King Tubal-Cain, represents the evil of Men – his battle with Noah, and thus with God, is frighteningly and believably intense. And critically, the writers introduce the Watchers (possibly the ‘Nephilim’ of Genesis), fallen angels that were punished by The Creator for aiding the world’s evil men. These giant rock-encrusted creatures frighten at first, but surprise us later.

Our lead character has a make-over too. While Noah’s actions from the Bible are recorded faithfully, Russell Crowe’s Noah is either a modern-day eco-warrior or (to read too deeply perhaps) a fanatic: a man who pursues his mission with such deterministic zeal that the end – to save all The Creator’s innocent creatures – justifies any means at all, even the dreams and lives of those closest to him.

All this judicious creative licence would be silly and infuriating if done clumsily. But in this context it’s daring, almost cheeky, and it works. So much so that the simple moral choice the film asks us to make comes across as credible rather than trite. For mass-market cinema this is rare indeed. This film has pissed off the world’s Christian fundamentalists, surely a sign that Aranofsky has got things right.

Visually this is an assured spectacle. Apparently the 1928 Noah’s Ark claimed the lives of three extras in the climactic flood scene. I have no idea how many CGI lives were lost in the making of this version, but it must have been a lot. Shot in Iceland, the volcanic earth is a perfect foil for the wasteland that men’s evils have wrought.

But like Noah, I’m frustrated and torn – this is a film on the cusp of greatness, a bold and exciting re-imagining that stumbles on audience-pleasing conventions it feels it must adhere to. The obligatory formulaic fight scene and its accompanying logic-defying conventions to allow the right kind of conclusion (“Don’t touch him, he’s mine!”) do their best to derail the film at the final hurdle. Scenes of conflict between Noah and his family later on in the film are awkwardly handled and stall the film’s momentum. You’ll be praying for the dove to hurry up with that olive branch.

Yet these are minor gripes in the grand scheme of this thing. I might be in the minority here, but I think this is a masterpiece. Flawed, but still an achievement of vision and creative audacity.

8/10

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