Noah:
***/*****, or 6/10
You
have to applaud his boldness, as Darren Aronofsky isn't afraid to
seek out controversy with his first blockbuster movie. After sticking
to the experimental and independent corners of contemporary American
cinema for decades and continuously teasing the industry with his
alleged plans to direct a big budget film for a major studio on more
than one occasion (RoboCop for example), Aronofsky finally did
just that. He hasn't made it easy on himself, opting for a Biblical
epic that needs to appease both the religious spectators and the
general international audience that does not care much for
Old-Testament overtones, in a time where the divide between the
tastes of both has parted as wide as Moses did the Red Sea. With
Noah, Aronofksy makes a brave attempt to keep everybody
emotionally invested in the story of the man chosen by God to
preserve His creation, but it proves an undertaking as monumental as
saving the whole of the animal kingdom on a single boat.
Noah's
main problem is it must be faithful enough to the source material
without being so religious as to scare away non-believers, as the
studio can't afford to choose one part of the film's potential
audience over the other to recuperate from its 125 million dollar
budget. Concessions to both parties had to be made, and the result is
an obvious, uncomfortable attempt at making a Biblical epic feel less
Biblical but no less epic. If the studio ever thought they could have
made a final cut of this movie that wouldn't be prone to harsh
judgment from Christian groups, screentesting three different rough
cuts – none of them in line with Aronofsky's own vision – to
strong criticism from a religious audience made them aware of the
impossibility of that endeavour. And so Aronofksy's cut is the one
shown in theaters, bound to undergo the inevitable public scrutiny.
Noah
follows Russell Crowe as the titular character. A descendant from
the line of Seth, he and his family live a life of vegetarian
righteousness and solitude, away from the rest of mankind, the
offspring of the murderer Cain, which has deteriorated into a
semi-industrial yet barbaric state and devoured the natural world.
Avoiding contact with other people, Noah and his wife (Jennifer
Connelly) have kept their three sons sheltered, teaching them to
respect creation above al else. Naturally, the boys prove curious as
to the way of life from their violent brethren, the rebellious middle
son, Ham (Logan Lerman) most of all. Plagued by disturbing visions of
humanity suffering under a great flood and inexplicable signs of the
Creator – a being adressed only as such throughout the piece, as
the term 'God' appears taboo – Noah seeks out his grandfather
Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) to learn what It has in store for him.
The strange and somewhat childish hermit informs him that the Creator
is planning on cleansing His world by water, washing away all the
wickedness of man, while Noah is destined to save the innocent, the
animals, from extinction. And thus Noah sets out to built a vessel to
do just that.
Even
a man as tough as Crowe cannot hope to perform such a Herculean task
by himself, but thankfully Aronofksy has added some stone giants to
aid him in his divine labour. Fallen angels that were abandoned by
God because they desired to help the sons of Cain in their growth,
they exist as supernatural beings of light trapped in volcanic rock
bodies, deformed and in agony over the fact men returned their
kindness with mayhem and war. Of course, a man as obnoxiously
righteous and noble as Noah wins them over easily. These so-called
Watchers now do more than observe, helping Noah to complete his task
and protect the Ark they construct together over eight years time.
The stone giants form a welcome addition to the rather dreary Noah
and his one-note family, dull to watch thus far. It's also clear that
much of the budget for visual effects went into designing them, at
least more so than the budget allocated to rendering the animals that
come pouring into the Ark when it is completed. Their design, which
bears to mind both utterly fantastic and prehistoric creatures,
compels the audience to consider Noah even more of a fantasy
picture: unless Aronofsky means to take some sort of evolutionary
process into account, envisioning these animals as almost their
contemporary counterparts, but not just quite there yet.
Naturally,
it's the human element that proves key in making us care about Noah's
plight. The selfless man must confront the vicious king Tubal-Cain
(Ray Winstone) and his legion of followers as the rains start to fall
and the monarch gets wind of the Creator's purpose for his people.
Winstone as always makes for an alarming villain, but there is an
uneasy truth in the king's philosophical rhetoric as well: God made
man in his image, so does that not also include his capacity for
destruction? After all, how much difference is there between a God
who feels like destroying mankind to save His creation and a king who
kills to feed his people? Though the resulting thunderstorm battle
between Noah and the Watchers and Tubal-Cain's vast forces proves a
fairly thrilling battle – a comparison to the Helm's Deep battle
from The Two Towers does not feel inappropriate – it's such
exploration of the nature of man and his relation to the Creator's
purpose that make for Noah's most interesting aspect, as could
be expected from Aronofsky. Unfortunately, once the battle is over
and the waters swallow the world, the film has reached its narrative
climax, but Aronofsky spends another 45 minutes examining the
emotional climax, as Noah's family finally gets to evolve into more
than cardboards characters. A little late to the game, as an
overdrawn ending forces itself upon the spectator.
It's
in this third act of the film that Noah emerges as a true religious
fanatic, claiming to alone understand his Creator's purpose as His
chosen one. The protagonist feels that God intended for humanity to
die out entirely, including him and his family, for the greater good
of the innocent animals. Fortunately the only woman in his company
eligible for breeding, a young girl once rescued on the road (Emma
Watson, with an overly strong off-putting English accent), was
barren, but proves no more thanks to Methuselah's convenient magic.
As his oldest son gets her pregnant, Noah makes no secret from his
intention to murder her child if it's a girl. And so the noble hero
quickly degenerates into a violent misogynist terrorizing his family
for months on end. Suffice to say, the audience quickly loses all
sympathy for him. Maybe this new side of Noah is what ticked off the
religious audience in the first place, as it wanted to make clear
that not all true believers condone such homicidal, fanatically
zealous behavior. To make matters worse, the king managed to slip
aboard the Ark unseen and lick his wounds in the lower levels aided
by the rebellious teenager Ham, who is angry with his father for not
allowing him to find a girl to share his life with before the
Apocalypse. It takes nine months for the waters to recede and Noah's
crisis of faith to reach its crescendo, while the king is eating his
way through the animal kingdom in the lower decks and Noah doesn't
even notice species dying out rapidly on his watch. Of course Noah
predictably chooses love over blind faith in the end and kills the
king: and so generic Hollywood conventions triumph over Aronofksy's
fascinating but at times disturbing notions on the human condition in
relation to its supreme being.
For
those that feared Aronofsky's signature style is lost adhering to the
rules of Hollywood, they can rest assured to some extent as it is
only tempered. Aronofsky still gets to revel in fast cutting montages
and creepy dream sequences as often before, applying the former into
a neat but contextually awkward sequence of life's evolution. The
director also makes wonderful use of the fabulous landscapes provided
by the Iceland locations to give the viewer a sense of awe throughout
the picture. And as in his earlier work, he's not afraid to
occasionally outright shock the audience, illustrated by a
nightmarish sequence in which Noah visits Tubal-Cain's encampment in
secret and witnesses animals being torn apart alive by hungry mobs,
who have also taken to cannibalism. The disturbing imagery
effectively evokes dark and moody paintings of hell and Judgment Day
by the likes of Bosch and convinces us that whatever truth there is
in the king's words, Tubal-Cain is not a good guy. So we are left
with picking the side of a man who makes his family cry as he
threatens to kill newborns on behalf of a God who destroys the world
to start over, in the hopes of getting it right this time. It's
ironic the studio tried to do a similar thing in the editing room to
get that final cut of Noah that appeases everybody, despite
the misgivings of the director who had to do all the hard work. Man
failed God (again) as was bound to happen, and though there's solid
action galore and a decent time allotted for thoughtfully debating
the relationship between man and his creator, Aronofksy similarly
could never have succeeded in making Noah work for everybody.
