Noah: A Review

It was difficult going into a movie without bias or prejudice. I now understand why jurors in a courtroom shouldn’t have prior knowledge of the case they will be sitting through and making assessments on – their prior experience has clouded what they may think of the case. “Noah” is no different – among conservative evangelicals and many others, Noah stands on trial. For the sake of those wanting to watch the film, I’ll save any spoilers for the end of the article (and let you know when I start to spoil things). For additional input, I loved what Brett McCracken had to say for Converge and this article that was posted by RELEVANT.

I give Noah a solid C.

While many of us cringe to see our favorite books or novels be made into films, Aronofsky already made his viewers skeptics by picking a biblical narrative. Most other bible stories have chapters or even whole books they can go off of, while the Noah account only has several chapters at best (in which Noah only speak three verses!). Anyone wanting to make a movie out of Noah has to fill in all the gaps somehow. This is where I can see most people getting upset with the film. Aronofsky doesn’t take anything away from the Noah narrative, but what he adds may make people angry.

Here’s what I liked. I liked how human Noah was. I liked how tragic the movie was, yet how merciful God was. I liked how God was a central character to the film. I liked how the movie used a story from the past and made it resonate with people of today. I definitely wasn’t angry throughout the whole film. I left feeling challenged at some points, with slight disappointment towards some of the film’s artistic executions.

First, I want to tackle some misconceptions. Those who say God is not in the movie have no clue what they are talking about. God is a central character in the film, only being referenced to as “The Creator” – a move that makes sense with how close Noah is to the Creation Story. God is seen as the one who made the earth. He is also the merciful God who is sparing Noah and the judging God that is condemning mankind.

Another misconception is that this is an environmentalist film. While taking care of God’s creation is an important issue in the movie, it is as big of an issue in the movie as it is in the biblical account. God has called mankind to be stewards of His creation, and they are being wasteful. This is something I think Aronofsky plays well with. Cain is the one who started the first civilization. Being wasteful and wrecking the environment is just a physical representation of how evil mankind has gotten. You won’t feel like mankind is bad because they hate the environment. You’ll feel like they are evil all over even to how they treat God’s creation.

Within the first several minutes of the film, you get the sense that this world isn’t quite like the world we live in today. When watching it, I couldn’t help but have a feeling like I was in a place similar to Middle Earth, and fortunately many others agree. With Noah being only ten generations since the Garden, earth before the flood has almost a mystical and whimsical sense to it. Many of the characters even have shaman-like powers verging on witchery. Is this what prophets used to be like? Creation before the Flood seems to still have a lot of the residue left from when God was in the Garden of Eden. But does making the earth seem like a mythical place take away from the main plot? I think there are some places where Aronofsky succeeds and some places where he fails. I think it was Aronofsky’s intention to have the audience feel like they were between worlds. He was nearly successful with it.

What I loved the most about the movie was how dark and real it was as far as the situation at hand. Here you have a man whose family are the only people to survive their own prehistoric apocalypse. Building the ark isn’t something that was filled with bliss and happiness. Throughout the film, Noah wrestles with his obedience to God and struggles to understand what God is trying to tell him. Noah, like the biblical Noah, was a man, and after the flood you see Noah having to live with the choices he has made up to this point. After seeing all of mankind destroyed, the first thing Noah does is drink away his pain. Noah is someone who I think anyone can relate to, and I applaud Aronofsky for that. Whether or not you think a prophet should be relatable is your opinion, but Noah is a man who struggles with his choices, misunderstands the full message of God’s commands, and is fallible.

Okay, so how was the film as far as just being a work of art?

It definitely wasn’t perfect. It was choppy and busy. The plot was very complex and everything hit a climax at one point of the film. In my opinion, it was a train wreck that ended up being turned into a piece of art. The points leading to the climax were catastrophic. But I thought the resolution was masterful. It was a movie with a brilliant development and a brilliant conclusion.

The cinematography was weird. I felt like many times the artistic dimension of the film was a bit forced. If anyone has seen a film by Terrence Malick, I feel like Aronofsky was going for an artistic feel much like one of his films. I just feel like Aronofsky failed to capitalize on it. In the end, the piecing of the film didn’t seem natural. I wasn’t swept into the dreams and visions and stories. There were places in the film where the CGI was brilliant and beautiful then there were other places where it was terrible. The post-production was very inconsistent, but that could be because they spent so much time trying to please their target audience. I also thought the acting was a bit over-the-top. If you see this as a Hamlet-esque film (like McCracken described it), then maybe this is okay. There were moments when the actors were brilliant, then there would be monologues that seemed again, forced. I thought it was just boarder-line cheesy at times – reaching for the audience to feel emotions by over-selling them on the screen.

Like I said before, I think the biggest problem people will have will be with what Aronofsky added. I don’t think most of it is objectively wrong, but for subjective reasons, I didn’t like much of it.

SPOILERS ahead.

Glenn Beck’s biggest problem with the movie seemed to be Aronofsky’s interpretation of “The Watchers” or Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4). In the bible, in simplest terms, these are fallen angels. While most people have their own ideas of what angels look like (that are equally inaccurate in the biblical sense), Aronofsky has these fallen angels being molded in the form of Rock Men. They almost reminded me of Tree Beard from LOTR. I haven’t yet decided if I didn’t like them because I thought they were too mythological or that I thought they just looked stupid from bad CGI, but I didn’t like them. I try to think though of something better that Aronofsky could’ve done – maybe Giants or just glorified human beings – but I don’t know if anything would make The Watchers cool. I don’t know if the story would be better without them. Before you get angry with this, remember that the bible also has tales of Leviathan and other creatures we try to write away or create explanations for. This is just one man’s explanation, and I just wasn’t a fan of it. By the time the Flood came, God had mercy on the Watchers and welcomed them back into heaven. This part was probably one of the most unsettling parts of the film for me. I’m sure it will leave you wondering too why God would have mercy on them and not on all of mankind. Thinking about their role in the film is dizzying.

There is also a brief glimpse of evolution in the film. If you aren’t looking for it though, you probably won’t notice it. While on the ark, Noah takes time to tell his family again the story of Creation. While going through the days of Creation, you see each animal group evolve into the next. What I applaud Aronofsky for is not showing that happen to mankind. Mankind still held a special place in the movie. Adam and Eve were wrapped in light. They were still set apart. This may unsettle some, but for me it wasn’t a big deal. Mankind was still set apart. Not only so, but the evolution montage was beautifully done and only filled about one or two minutes of the nearly two and a half hour film.

The movie is filled with Noah wrestling with his obedience to God and not wanting to be merciful at all to mankind. At the end of the film, I thought Aronofsky showed God’s mercy beautifully as Noah makes a decision to spare his family from the destruction of God. Throughout the film Noah thinks that humans will no longer take part in God’s creation. He assumes that if God wants to kill off all of mankind, then he and his family would be the last of them, dying off once Noah’s youngest son passes away. Noah comes across as a lunatic for a good hour of the movie as he tries to understand the task God wants him to fulfill, and he struggles to take it to its bitter end. At the end of the film, God is seen as a Being who either allows mankind the freedom to choose his destiny or a Being who knew Noah’s choice from the beginning (thus giving him the task to begin with). Only a bible scholar will notice the tightrope walked for this part of the film. This will definitely put a bitter taste in the mouth of anyone looking at the narrative through Sunday School eyes. But it causes Noah’s humanity stand out. Noah isn’t God in this movie as much as any of mankind is. The reason for Noah’s survival isn’t necessarily his goodness but God’s mercy.

This film definitely isn’t perfect. It definitely isn’t a Christian film. This is about the God of the Old Testament, so there is no need to mention Christ. It definitely could be toxic to anyone wanting to use it to further bash God or Christians. But when the movie ends, I don’t know of a person who wouldn’t want to pick up their bible as soon as they get home.

Advertisement

Hipsters, Hedonism, and the Truth Behind it All.

I have been called a hipster more times than I can count. Some people say it as a joke. Some people say it and mean it. Some people say it in a negative way. Some people say it in a positive way. And I am just drinking my Chemex-brewed coffee, wearing my canvas shoes, flannel, and weed hat, and listening to “Bon Iver” wondering what the heck they are talking about…

At least I don’t have a mustache…

What is relevance? Relevance is the idea of being “up with the times”… scratch that… AHEAD of the times! If you are only caught up and not moving forward with what is “cool” or “hip,” than that means that you are “un-hip,” “boring,” or even “lame.” I never realized this constant pursuit of cool until I read Brett McCracken’s book, “Hipster Christianity.” In it McCracken describes what hipster culture is and how the movement was originally birthed in the beatnik era of the 50’s. Throughout the book, Brett wrestles with what happens when culture/counter-culture starts interfering with values and the truth. Where does one draw the line?

Hasty generalizations are amazing.

There are two types of people we find today in the church (or two types or churches if you want to look at it that way). There are the people who preach the truth at people, and there are the people that tip-toe around fluff in the name of relevance. I know that there are people trying to find a balance: have a message that is interesting and worth being heard while still having a heaping amount of truth, but most people still fall more into one camp or another. There are obvious problems with each of these camps.

To be fully focused on the truth alone is abrasive. While some might think that they are preaching a message “to” people, what they are really doing usually is preaching “at” people. They are speaking truth, but it is not “seasoned with salt.” For this reason, many people don’t see Christianity as a worldview worth respecting, and many people behind the Church’s walls are like confused travelers. Many Christians are looking at the map of life and know the destinations, but they don’t know where they are at, what direction is what, or even which way to hold the stinking map!

The repercussion of being relevant is that one is chasing a never-ending goal. As soon as something is cool, the pursuit continues. There is no end to relevancy. If someone stays in one place, then they instantly become stale. Not to mention that cool is not something that everyone is trying to seek. Not everyone wants to be cool! It is kind of exhausting. And to be “counter-cultural” (if that really exists) might force someone to go against a tradition or practice that has been accepted or trusted for years. Sometimes being “counter-cultural” is counter-truth. Those within its ranks are also condescending, as if to be cool is a social badge of honor. So for churches or people to think of this as a healthy medium to convey a message must not realize that relevancy restricts the core audience one is trying to reach.

So what does one do?

One needs to learn how to convey truth without making it abrasive. This starts by not telling people the truth, but showing people how to find the truth. One thing that I have noticed over the past few years is how many people who were Christians in high school lose their faith while they’re in college. Though some might claim that these students were never Christian to begin with, or that they got caught up in the hedonistic pleasures of the liberal arts lifestyle, many of these students leave the faith, because they find the faith irrational.

Many people start developing “abstract thought” when they get around the age when one goes to college. Students get confused when their worldview is mixed with the different questions and options of worldviews that professors throw at them as soon as they get through the doors. For a freshman to only know the truth without knowing how they got to that truth would make them sitting prey for anyone who has taken an entry level philosophy class. Truth, if only presented “as is,” leaves the scales within one’s mind wanting. How does one know that truth should be accepted if there is not evidence presented? What happens when two different people disagree on what “truth” is in a given instance?

Truth also needs to be interesting. This is where relevance ties in. Recently I heard Bob Goff, author of “Love Does” and founder of “Restore International,” speak at my church. Bob not only brought an impactful message on forward-thinking and forgiveness, but he also made it interesting! He told stories from life with gregarious and expressive body language. He was even able to tie in a Taylor Swift reference! This is someone who not only knows how to present the truth, but he knows how to do it with vigor while keeping it relevant. That sounds like a triple threat.

One needs to learn how to make their speech “seasoned with salt.” Just like salt can easily overpower one’s food, relevance can be one’s best tool or ones’ greatest weakness. If one does not use enough relevancy or add in enough illustrations that the audience can relate too, they will lose most of the audience as the audience loses interest and zones out (what oftentimes happens to me at church). If one uses too much relevancy then the audience might be interested, but they will only hear a motivation speech at best. They won’t learn as much as they could have. In either case there is a great deal that people won’t learn.

We must learn how to season our speech with salt. We must learn how to not just preach the truth at people, but we need to teach people how to find the truth for themselves. That is what true discipleship is. And we need to not get so caught up in making ourselves sound interesting that the whole core of our message is lost.

Teach. Don’t tell.

Season. Don’t saturate.

And maybe we can show the truth to the world… and the world will listen.