Movie review: Noah

 You have to give credit to Darren Aronofsky to have shown a commendable contempt of danger, in embarking (it must be said) in a film adaptation at high risk.

Bring up the Genesis, Noah and the Great Flood without plunging suddenly into the dusty subgenre to Biblical Cecil B. DeMille was tricky undertaking, considering that even the poor John Huston in “The Bible” (1966) touched one of the points the lowest of his career. Yet ambition and a good dose of delirium of omnipotence have generated a little child at least curious, flawed but not without reasons of interest.

The winning idea of ​​Aronofsky and his faithful writer Ari Handel was to merge in a union against the biblical nature with the fantasy and the catastrophic, notched orthodoxy and impressing the theme very personal impression, totally unexpected in from a blockbuster $ 130 million. On the other hand, recognized the tendency of the director to the bombastic kitsch (see the infamous “The Fountain”) is always lurking, with results not always favorable.

The Noah Russell Crowe, far from corresponding to the biblical patriarch of the Vulgate, is a close relative of Max Cohen of “Pi – theorem of delirium” (1997), which relied on complex numerological speculations of the Kabbalah to reveal the real name of God The only difference is that the God of Noah, while manifesting itself through dreams and hallucinations, provides conclusive evidence of its existence, which can not be questioned.

For the rest, Noah is one of the typical characters of the tormented and obsessive American film director, not so dissimilar from Nina of “The Black Swan” (2010) and the lost souls of “Requiem for a Dream” (2000). In a context in which there are clear references to the contemporary (pollution, war, indiscriminate slaughter of animals), the powerful characterization of the character amplifies modernity, making it a cross between Curtis, the neurotic protagonist of “Take Shelter” of Jeff Nichols, a visionary and inhabited by the divine word.

In a desolate land, crossed by the hordes of mindless race of Cain, Noah has no difficulty to understand, accept and share God’s plan for water Death for mankind, guilty of having betrayed expectations, and salvation for all animals, which are by definition innocent. Indulged in its purposes Naameh by his wife, his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, and the adopted daughter Ila (a new entry), Noah must beware the mob led by Tubal-cain, hardened sinners unwilling to conform to God’s plans. Fortunately, you can count on the support of the Guardians Noah, the Nephilim of the Biblical version of Aronofsky, who recall in a suspicious manner Ents by Peter Jackson.

In addition to the danger that comes from the outside, the protagonist will have to face even though a large number of family psychodrama, from teenage rebellion to the birth of twins Cam Ila.

Aronofsky lets you take your hand on several occasions, both when pasting in a cloying iconography from the catechism, as in the sequences in the Garden of Eden or the story of the six days of Creation (which is bitterly regret Malick’s “The Tree of Life “), which sketches out when a battle scene, the assault on the Ark men of Tubal-cain, who seems taken bodily from” The Lord of the Rings “, with the Guardians who ascend to heaven as the gargoyles of” The Frankenstein. “

But it is precisely in this casual mix of high and low, of pop culture and private obsessions, exuberance and reckless blockbuster auteur cinema, the film is a quirky balance, even if the result does not satisfy all palates. To break through at the box office “Noah” is indeed a blockbuster too “deviant,” and indulges in too many concessions to the current taste for cinema lovers rejoice all in one piece.

And if you recall the scenes of the Flood Dore’s engravings revisited through the CGI effects, to escape from the wreck (over the Ark) is first and foremost a mighty Russell Crowe, perhaps the only actor capable of bringing depth and credibility to the characters “larger than life”. Its Noah, Job, half and half Abraham, goes to the divine dall’invasamento compulsive obsession with consummate ease, while the forced confinement Ark ago dormant tensions explode and Tubal-cain, armed with the pride of Lucifer, is transformed into the dark double of the protagonist.

Equally at Ray Winstone in the antagonist, “maker of instruments of bronze and iron,” according to the Bible, and Jennifer Connelly in the role of Naameh, and raises some perplexity see Anthony Hopkins Yoda uncertain whether to interpret or Methuselah.

Movie review: Noah