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At last, Darron Aronofsky was allowed to make a big blockbuster and, of course, I was really eager to check the end-result. Eventually, he didn’t go for the easy path and decided to go all the way and direct a massive biblical epic. To be honest, even though I was quite impressed, I’m still not quite sure what to make of the whole thing and I will probably re-watch it at some point in the future to make up my mind for good. First of all, it was visuallly impressive. I mean, throughout the movie, you get some mystical imagery but he managed to give it some really intriguing look and you really get the feeling that you are watching something out of this world. I have to admit it, I’m not a religious person, in the contrary, and I'm not sure I actually really cared about this ancient tale but I have always been fascinated by the concept of religion and this movie definitely gave some food for thought. Indeed, even though the scale was huge, the whole thing is basically about Noah himself and the struggles he has to face. How does he know exactly what his creator has meant him to do? He simply doesn’t and becomes pretty messed up in the process. Indeed, while building the ark, all the animals come automatically so that was pretty easy but what about mankind? How do you decide to let millions of people to die? Did they all deserve this fate? From that point, Noah is eaten by guilt and becomes pretty much a fanatical doomsday despot who decides that even his family should die. And that’s when the movie gets really fascinating and shows the difficult concept behind any faith and religion. Indeed, men are made of flesh and bones, they have feelings and even if you do something good, should you feel good about it, should you be proud? Noah did something terrible and he was even planning to kill his grand-children but he would save the planet in the process so that might be ok? Furthermore, who is he to decide who should live and who should die? I also enjoyed the way Ray Winstone developed some pretty interesting theories like if the creator gave us so many mighty gifts/powers, it is probably to use them, isn’t it? And after all, aren’t we dominating the world as it is nowadays? That’s some very great stuff and still, somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that the whole thing was not flawless. For example, the way Logan Lerman finds a girl was completely phony and also the way Anthony Hopkins had a major influence on those events didn’t work very well either. Futhermore, their genetic pool seems to be terribly limited to repopulate the Earth (does it mean that the youngest boy will have to be a bigamist and have sex with both his nieces (hopefully, not at the same time...) ?). Of course, you could say it was God's will but I don’t buy it as it is one of the major weaknesses in all religions in general. Still to conclude, it is quite a thoughtful epic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Darren Aronosfky’s work.
8/10
