There's been a spate of old world epics lately, maybe partly inspired by the success of Game of Thrones. I expect I'll watch Pompeii soon, though it looks terrible. At first glance Noah looks like the same kind of trash, but then you notice its directed by Darren Aronofsky, who for me is among a small group of directors who I'd watch anything by.
I was well rewarded. It was a good movie, with a lot to think about in it.
The first issue when retelling a well known story is how faithful to be to the 'original', especially when it's a biblical story which some people might be sensitive about. This gets dealt with early on, when the film begins with a rapid cartoony catch-up in a silly font about how mankind began, which does not match Genesis (instead I think they've embellished ideas from the non-canon Book of Enoch). The Noah myth is pretty confusing. I think most people know it's based on an even older Babylonian myth of King Gilgamesh (who possibly did really exist), but its been retold lots of other times too, including an ancient Greek version. The version that appears in the Bible is probably merged from two different stories, hence the confusion about things like how many pairs of each animal there were (two of each, or seven of the clean and two of the unclean) and the length of the flood.
As well as the flood, Noah is also known in the Bible (and the Koran), as the man who first discovered wine and got drunk. There's a weird bit where he gets drunk, his son Ham sees him naked, so he curses Ham's son. This is presumably some sort of biblical euphemism that I don't understand.
What all agree on though is that Noah was chosen by God, and was a man on a mission. At the start of the movie him and his family are the only good vegetarian descendants of Seth on Earth, with a very extreme moral code. He chides his son for picking a flower out the ground, and is deeply dismayed when three of the bad descendants of Cain kill a dog to eat it. Such are Noah's morals that he casually kills all of them and doesn't mention it again - though there is a touching funeral for the dog. Clearly Noah has given up on the rest of mankind.
Incidentally, it's not clear how Noah's family managed to keep their blood line pure, without some serious inbreeding. The kids all look very healthy though. The problem of inbreeding reoccurs when Noah's family are the only ones left at the end to repopulate the Earth, and of course at the start, when the only men on Earth leave the Garden of Eden and have children.
Noah is a really tough patriarch, and his word goes in the family. He's intense and single minded, a bit like his Inspector Javert, and indeed he does sing briefly, but not very loudly. His one act of kindness is rescuing Emma Watson as an extra family member and wife for his oldest daughter. In the good Christian tradition every man needs a (fertile) wife, and there's some interesting sexual tension between Emma Watson and the son she's not marrying. Ham wants a wife too, but Noah pointedly doesn't rescue the girl Ham likes. To be fair this is a girl Ham's just met, and she would presumably be a bit alarmed to discover Ham wanted to kidnap her and live with her forever on a huge animal boat, but still, Ham takes it personally, and doesn't forget. There's no confronting Noah so he just simmers in resentment.
Noah's counterpart is the local bad man Ray Winstone, who looks a lot like a Klingon villain. Ray also tries to talk to God, but God keeps ignoring him, so he takes matters into his own hands and is a King among men. Noah literally has God on his side though, and is fearless. When Noah tells Ray that the end is coming, he's so sincere you really believe him, and Ray does too, and makes plans to steal the Ark. You've a lot of sympathy for Ray, as he's in the position most people are in. God certainly doesn't speak to me, why should I do what other people claim God wants me to do? If God really cared, he could deliver the message personally. I think that, although Ray is obviously the evil version of Noah, it's an interesting parallel and they're not so different. Ray only wants to feed the city-folk who can fight for him, which seems callous, but remember Noah is only letting his own family on the massive boat he's built. He doesn't even give the rest of the world a chance to repent or build their own boats.
The Ark itself is not much of a boat, just a big box. It looks like a Maersk shipping container. There's a nice practical touch when Mrs. Noah sedates all the animals when they get on. I thought they could have made more of the montage of building the Ark, although I can understand why they didn't as it heavily involves the Watchers, who I've so far avoided mentioning. Let's just say, the film would be better with just humans (and animals and demi-god Anthony Hopkins).
On the Ark the tension cranks up, like it should do in any good submarine film. Noah reaches the uncomfortable conclusion that his family are not so different from everyone else. His reaction to this is not to try and save other people, though he can hear them screaming outside the boat and the rest of the family are urging him to help them. Instead, he concludes his family are equally wicked, and they all have to die too. There's a harrowing scene around the dinner fire where Noah calmly explains the suicide pact they must all enter into, with the order they're going to lay each other to rest once the task is completed and they've made dry-land.
This is when the film gets really interesting, when Noah starts to over-interpret the visions he's had from God. You've got to blame God for this again, he could have just told Noah exactly what to do rather than giving him riddles in his dreams. Noah becomes a religious fanatacist, and is a dangerous man. The film shows what can happen if people start to believe things with a religious fervour. It's an eloquent argument against the dangers of being obsessive, which is a theme of Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan). When Noah decides he needs to kill some babies too his family draw the line and turn against him, and the madness and anger on the boat is no better than Cain and Abel. In the Bible God told Abraham to kill his own son Isaac, and Noah has his own moment like this with a knife poised above his grand-daughters. In fact, in the last five minutes on the boat it all happens in some action-packed scenes. No one's even that surprised when Ray Winstone pops up from behind a goat, having hidden there for the last nine months.
When they do shortly hit dry-land, the family are still a bit shaken. Noah sets himself apart, discovers wine and nudity, and is found naked by Ham. I'm still not sure of the significance of this.
Overall, a good looking and thought provoking film.
