It seems that there are two types of biblical films. The first is the type that we’ve seen a glut of over the past year: Heaven is for Real, God’s Not Dead, Left Behind, Saving Christmas, etc. These movies pander hard to their respective (usually Christian) audiences, telling them how right they are and propping up straw man figures for them to tear down together. On the other hand, you have the type of movie that tries to tell compelling stories for a wider, sometimes-secular audience. Here, you’ve got your Ten Commandments, your Last Temptation of Christ. Every once in a while a film becomes a crossover success (you could argue this happened with The Passion of the Christ), but Christian and biblical films generally must decide which audience they wish to please.
The problem with Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is that it has absolutely no idea who it wants to please, outside of Aronofsky himself. When looking at it as its own stand-alone film, completely divorced from the relevance it is automatically granted from being a biblical story, it doesn’t particularly hang together. The way that Noah’s family history is discussed, with them being the last descendants of Seth, is rather meaningless without the gravity the bible lends to the story. We see clans at war in a desolate landscape, but we aren’t given much to care about with any of the characters. The first half of the film plays out as a long series of things just happening: Noah having the vision of the flood, seeking out the fallen angels, building the arc from the miraculous instant-forest, fighting off Cain’s descendants, and ultimately sailing off on the ark. Some of the shots and effects are awe-inspiring in their own right, but the characters are flat and the dramatic subplots (involving a daughter-in-law who is barren and a son whose warrior instincts make him sympathize with Cain’s clan) feel tacked on.
The second half fares a little better in terms of drama, but feels quite separate from the first. It’s also a bit problematic because the central dramatic conceit, that Noah believes God wants him to let humanity die and to personally murder his own grand-daughters, is never well-explained. Nothing in Noah’s visions seem to indicate that God wanted Noah to put an end to humanity; they just indicate a great flood, and that Noah must build an arc to carry life forward. That Noah makes the assumption that humanity has to end and that this is God’s wish says more about his character than it does God.
There is a bit of a payoff with Emma Watson’s explanation of God’s intentions towards the end that help put things into perspective, but it’s still a weird, lopsided film. It fairs even worse as a film for Christian audiences. I watched the film with my fiancee, Reba, who is far more versed in the bible than I am. This was somewhat akin to watching a comic book movie with somebody extremely familiar with the original comics, complaining about all of the liberties taken.
These liberties are at least worth noting, though. As I said from my more “secular” perspective, without the gravity the biblical context gives the movie, there’s not a lot of compelling drama driving it forward for the first half. So if the film is made to appeal to people to whom biblical stories hold a particular reverence, outright contradicting the old testament in major ways is a strange decision to make.
Some of these are defensible, and even commendable for their artistic interpretation. Take, for instance, the way that God’s message to Noah is portrayed in the film. Rather than a voice from above, dictating what Noah must do, he is given a prophetic dream. This allows for a much more cinematic warning of the flood. Perhaps more questionably (in a way that initially irked Reba), there are fallen angels (the Watchers) in the film that are portrayed as giant six-armed creatures made of rock. This interpretation apparently stems from certain verses in texts typically only recognized in Judaism, in which fallen angels came down from the heavens to help humanity after Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of knowledge. Aronofsky hangs onto a verse that says they were cast down to the earth, and takes it to mean that they were literally made into beings of rock. It’s a stretch, but it allows for a visually unique take on the Watchers.
Other liberties are probably less defensible. For one, the old testament explicitly states that Noah’s three sons were all married, and that their wives were brought onto the ark. In this telling, only one wife (Emma Watson’s character, who is the barren wife previously mentioned) makes it onto the ark. The middle child, Ham, has a brief love interest, but she is trampled to death shortly before the flood. The youngest child is far too young to have a wife, so the character simply does not exist.
Furthermore, the previously mentioned Noah-wants-to-murder-his-grandbabies story is completely absent from any biblical texts, to my knowledge. This is a major hurdle for traditionally Judeo-Christian audiences to clear, as Noah is generally considered to be something of a hero. Considering the entire second half of the movie rests on this dramatic conceit makes the whole film hard to swallow for them.
Due to these issues, Noah is a difficult movie to recommend to any audience. However, it is certainly not without its merits. The very existence of this movie, a $125 million Hollywood-produced biblical epic directed by the guy who made Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, makes it a singular experience worth seeking out. Aronofski absolutely makes the film his own, and being able to see such a personalized take on a familiar story realized on such a grand scale is impressive in its own right.
There is also a short sequence, about midway through the film, that is one of the most beautifully realized of the year. In it, Noah shares the story of creation with his family. We the audience are treated to a visual montage, presented in faux-time-lapse, of the entire history of life on earth. Noah’s voice over explains it all in terms of the biblical explanation, while the visuals show how this matches up with our own scientific understanding of evolution, the origin of life, and human history. Even if you have no interest in watching Noah, I implore you to watch this sequence, which I’ve embedded below.