Noah

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Andrew

If you ever wondered what Darren Aronofsky's telling of a biblical epic would look like, well you're in luck! To be honest I could not imagine what that would look like but now that I've seen it, well yeah that's exactly what Darren Aronofsky's telling of a biblical epic would look like.

It's the story of Noah that we all know, but Aronofsky pimps it out with beautiful visuals and fills it with a lot of really dark emotional turmoil. It's rather amazing and sometimes completely baffling.

I really love his version of the Watchers. Their stop-frame like animation reminds me of the rock gnomes from Return to Oz. So cool. And the seed from eden and the story of creation sequences are pretty stunningly told with a sort of timelapse photography style. Super cool.

I love the setting and the fable feeling of the whole thing. And just how dark it goes. It is a horrifying story and we aren't spared those aspects. It tends to lose me when it goes bombastic and adds in action. Especially so towards the end where a character is blatantly kept around in order to facilitate an act 3 climactic one on one fight. I get why he might be there to thematically re-iterate some points but I don't think it was needed.

Oh and Clint Mansell is just reusing his score from The Fountain. Kinda lazy...

It's a really odd one to nail down. To do this kind of mythological story in a realistic tone is always going to result is some slight goofiness by virtue of the story being told, but the actors all dig in and they try real hard to make things matter. Ultimately I think there's much more about the film that I like than I didn't. It's a great experiment and I certainly hope it leads Aronofsky to do more big budgeted fare. I think that's the most important take away from this exercise.