Noah, the Movie: powerful, intriguing and provocative

Perhaps I was so eager to see Russell Crowe’s new movie, Noah, because of the critical unanimity. Among a few very conservative Muslims, evangelical Christians, and Roman Catholics, this was a study in misanthropy and a perversion of  Genesis with an extreme left-wing environmentalist agenda.

And then there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal quoting Director and self-proclaimed atheist Darren Aronofsky “bragging” that his was the “least biblical” of any Bible story ever.  Now that I have seen the film, I understand the media chatter about misanthropy and ‘extreme’ environmental agendas.

I disagree with all of them. Noah, the Movie: powerful, intriguing and provocative.

I was prepared to like the movie, despite the critics- (or perhaps because of them.) And I expected to see huge and spectacular cinematography. And I was not disappointed.

As a long-time fan of Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins, I expected to see splendid portrayals of Noah and Methuselah. Again, I was not disappointed.

But I did not expect to be plunged deeply into Noah’s psyche. The man Noah, played by Crowe, is familiar to me. I related to Crowe’s portrayal of Noah: his anguish is raw, startling, and his courage is ugly. We’re given few facts about Noah; the Bible provides the sketchiest details. Therefore, the room for an imaginative interpretation of the ‘last just man’ on earth is there. And this man is someone we know…we can go where he goes, kicking and screaming, but we can get there.

Anti-Biblical?

The primary complaints about the movie are: anti-Biblical and anti-God, extreme-environmentalist agenda, misanthropic and supporting an atheistic viewpoint. There are more, but these are the four I find most intriguing:

• Impugning the film Noah as “anti-Biblical” and anti-God is curious to me. The elements of the extremely sketchy details given in Genesis are all there in the movie.  In fact, the screenwriter bothered to research the Book of Enoch to read about the ‘Watchers’ and the ‘Guardians.’ They are brilliantly depicted in the film.
• That the movie has an extreme environmentalist agenda seems almost comical if it weren’t such a patently political criticism. The dialogue that Crowe is given to describe the task he has been given is sparse but beautiful. “The fate of creation rests on our care for these creatures.”
• Misanthropic? Crowe’s interpretation of God’s will for the fledgling remnant of creation was realistic.  Watching the movie inserts us into being the “last just man” on earth. We sense both the awe and the sheer horror of the realization: Noah and we are sinners. We too had broken the world . ‘The world was broke,’ say the Watchers..’.it was broke by man’.  Once I did, I could get to the place he did…so could you.
• The director’s ostensible desire to create the ‘most anti-Biblical’ movie ever produced was not achieved.  Crowe’s Noah is a brilliant portrayal of a man who trusts his God.
• He is accustomed to hearing Him and works desperately to do His will.
• But when confronted by His silence…finds himself alone in the darkness of his soul.