It’s hard
to have a clear opinion about Noah,
Darren Aronofsky’s new film about the ark-builder, family man and reluctant
servant of God given the task of saving the animals in order that the old
corrupt world can be destroyed and a new purified one can take its place. That's because it raises so many unanswerable questions, using the biblical story of Noah. The Earth must suffer fire to cleanse what little
remains in the way of civilization and flood waters that will wipe out mankind
and allow for the birth of a new world. Noah is aided in his task of building the
ark by the Watchers, creatures that are essentially beings of light
(angels) that disobeyed the will of God by helping mankind, and who ended up punished
by God--trapped by the elements of Earth—mud and rock. They are also called the 'giants in the earth'. When Noah (played by Russell Crowe), his wife Naameh (played by Jennifer Connelly) and his family
meet them, they are giant stone creatures resembling small mountains when stationary, who destroy any person who dares to
cross into their territory; they no longer trust humans. But they come to
understand that Noah, who visits his grandfather Methuselah (played by Anthony Hopkins) in order to discuss
with him the dreams he’s been having, is a good man, descended from the line of
Seth, and not of Cain (who murdered his brother). The latter line has succeeded
in the space of five generations in ravaging and plundering the Earth and
destroying the creatures—animals and birds—who live on it. The Earth is a
devastated place, lacking food and water. Noah and his family are nomads and
vegetarians, who at times run into large groups of marauders who think nothing
of murdering innocent people and taking what they want from them. As you watch
the film, you know that the end of the world is coming; it cannot continue this
way forever; the film is pervaded by this apocalyptic vision. It’s hard not to
make the jump to the present day, where mankind’s brutality, violence, and continual
devastation of the environment have marked our own world for extinction—in our
case perhaps via global warming and/or natural catastrophes caused by our destruction
of the planet we live on. The symbolism is not subtle.
The group
of marauders descended from the line of Cain is led by a man named Tubal-Cain (played by Ray Winstone),
who is ruthless, dangerous and proud. He believes man was made in the image and
likeness of God, using that as an excuse to behave badly; he is not
God-fearing, preferring to believe that man can behave like God and decide who
lives and who dies. Noah is presumably the hero and Tubal-Cain is the
anti-hero. Except that it never is that black-and-white, because as the film nears
its end, it’s clear to all that Noah is not without sin. In fact, he is a
guilt-ridden, deluded, plagued man, angry with the world and with God for
assigning him this mission, merciless and ruthless in his own way. The tasks of
building the ark, saving the animals, and saving his family prove to be too
much for one man’s sanity, especially when he is challenged by his son Ham (played by Logan Lerman),
whose pleas to save the young woman he has met and wishes to take with him
onboard the ark are ignored, resulting in her death. Ham and Noah become
estranged, and Ham is tempted to betray his father by Tubal-Cain, who has
managed to come aboard the ark, threatening the survival of all those on board.
The film’s
imagery is impressive. It’s hard not to be moved by the scenes of earthly
devastation, the eventual flood (rising waters and death by drowning), the battle
scenes between the marauders and the Watchers (and their eventual deaths and
release from this world), the scenes of birds and animals making their way to
the ark, as well as the segment on the creation of the world in seven days. The
latter is especially impressive. But it’s also a provocative film as well as at
times an over-the-top and illogical one. The numbers of innocent women and children
who perished in the flood is hardly justifiable, if God is a righteous God. But
we know that the God of the Old Testament was hardly a merciful God, in
contrast to Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, the lives of women and
children in this patriarchal age were worth very little. Why did God allow
that? Why did God spare Noah and his family alone? Surely there were other good
families that could also have been saved? Why did Noah first listen to Ham’s
wish to find a woman to take aboard so that he would not be alone in the new
world, only to vehemently repudiate that idea (he concludes that his only task
was to save the animals, not that humans should repopulate the Earth. The scene
where he tells his infertile adopted daughter Ila (played by Emma Watson) who is together with his son
Shem (played by Douglas Booth) that she is a gift no matter that she cannot reproduce perhaps portends
this)? Was that the correct conclusion? Who can know? Why did he consider murdering
Ila’s twin daughters, only then to change his mind (he presumably goes against
the will of God as he had divined it)? Did God really want him to kill his own
grandchildren (one is reminded of the story of Abraham being asked to kill his
son Isaac)? These questions are not answered in the Old Testament, and
Aronofsky does not answer them either. I left the theater knowing that I had
seen a film that would make me think about the things that Aronofsky is clearly
preoccupied with—what are we doing to our planet, are we incurring the wrath of
its Creator, is the Apocalypse coming, why are we so preoccupied with the end
of the world and can we stop it, can we cleanse our world of sin, how can we be reborn and what will it take, is there a merciful Creator, is love the
answer to all things (do women intuit and understand that message better than
men), and are both men and women necessary to keep the balance between the
cerebral and the emotional worlds we inhabit? We cannot have too much of the
one or the other as mortal human beings. Or can we? What is Paradise, and why
were its original inhabitants so willing to risk their happiness for something
they (perceived that they) did not have? Why were they so gullible to temptation?
And if they did not have happiness, then how could where they lived be called
Paradise? Is it man’s curse to be forever dissatisfied with what he has? Or is
this perhaps the greatest temptation of all—to trust others (sometimes in the guise of
well-meaning, wise, 'religious' seekers and worldly leaders) to define happiness for us, when
we know deep within ourselves what it really is? We must constantly be on the
lookout for, and be able to identify, those who would deceive and mislead us, and we must not deceive ourselves. Not easy tasks, much like building an ark and rebuilding a broken world.
