Tag: Noah

Silver linings, anyone?

By Michael Vadon - from Wikipedia
Photo by Michael Vadon – from Wikipedia

As the majority of the world sits in shock that a reality TV star was actually voted in to be the next President of the United States (happy or not, y’all have to admit only Michael Moore expected this result!), many awoke Wednesday morning trying to make some sense of it all.

It’s usually around this time that the desperately positive side of me seeks some kind of solace or acceptance by trying to find a silver lining in a seemingly poor situation – that same part of me that has allowed me to be a Vancouver Canucks fan for so many years.
It is with that train of thought that I consider what possible positive outcome might eventually come from the fact that more than 50 million Americans submitted their vote for a man with no international political experience, the temperament of a bully, sexist tendencies and an undeniable ability to look someone in the eye and lie if it suited him in that moment.
There was an intense sense of panic across the country leading up to this election. There was panic from those who feared their country was already falling apart and looked to Trump as their only option for change. There was also panic from those who opposed Trump and feared the type of change he could bring.
It became clear, however, that very few Americans felt that their country was going to be just fine no matter what happened Nov 8.
Perhaps the shocking election of Donald J. Trump was the wake-up call or the shake up the country needed to become more focused on what it needs to do in order to actually become whole again.
If Trump is as ridiculous, ignorant and unprepared as President as he showed to be during his campaign it’s going to become painfully obvious rather fast. In which case the need for dramatic reform could kick the country into high gear, unite leaders in unprecedented ways and refocus the entire country.
Or perhaps Trump becomes humbled by the responsibility of leading the free world, learns on the job quickly and becomes the new type of leader millions of Americans are hoping for. If that happened it would also completely change the way American politics function moving forward.
Of course it’s also possible he leads the country into civil war, alienates millions and sets of world-wide fires that can’t be easily extinguished while the US of A becomes a joke, sending Western society into grave danger. But let’s stay on the possible silver lining track here for a minute!
It is clear that something had to give. Much like when mother nature sets off natural disasters in order to renew herself for the longevity of the planet, perhaps this disaster of an election will do the same for the longevity of the USA.
Perhaps this is the political version of the story of Noah and the flood and America can come out of this disaster ready for a more positive future.
Unfortunately, as many Americans learned while crashing the Canadian immigration website last night, Canada is not the Ark!
Happy silver linings, everyone!

Noah channels God’s wrath and humankind’s fallibility

Russel Crowe is Noah in Darren Aronofsky’s latest film. (photo from Paramount Pictures)

An earnest amalgam of free-association Bible story, dire disaster movie and family melodrama, Noah is a more thoughtful and provocative movie than one has any right to expect. Sure, it’s ludicrous and ponderous at times and embellished with gratuitous special effects, but it also succeeds in prodding the viewer to reflect on his or her behavior toward others and relationship to God.

Darren Aronofsky, a Brooklyn Jew by birth and upbringing, has concocted a sporadically inspired film with enough fodder for a month of sermons. It’s a compelling saga up until the great flood, when key plot elements collide with enough force and absurdity to sink an ark. Metaphorically speaking, that is. After all, the species (plural) must go on.

In terms of contemporary resonance and relevance, the film’s depiction of religious absolutism pushed to the point of tyrannical self-righteousness – in the name of God, of course – neatly undercuts the inclination by zealots of any faith to claim Noah as gospel.

I remember Noah as a mild-mannered super-carpenter and reluctant zoologist in my Hebrew school classes of yore, but you don’t cast Russell Crowe to play a guy grappling with internal and existential dilemmas. His Noah is a decisive survivalist who doesn’t hesitate to kill to protect his family or to fulfil God’s plan.

Aronofsky’s Noah can only infer and deduce that plan from the occasional wondrous sign or disturbing dream, aided by his sage, Merlin-esque grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins). Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel resist the temptation – and the arrogance – of having God speak directly to Noah.

We have no doubt, though, that Noah is the last true believer in the Creator, as the Lord is referred to throughout the picture. Indeed, he has a real talent for channeling God’s merciless fury. In this regard, Noah is reminiscent of Moses, who was up to the task of meting out vengeance – or justice, in the vernacular of the film – when the time came.

That association aside, Aronofsky’s most Jewish picture remains his mystical black-and-white debut, Pi, in which Handel has a cameo as a kabbalah scholar. It is much more difficult to discern a Jewish sensibility in Noah than it was (to summon another biblical adaptation) to detect Mel Gibson’s deep-seated antisemitism in The Passion of the Christ.

photo - Noah's Ark in the film Noah
Noah’s Ark, pictured here with its master builder and his son, is based on interpretations of what the biblical vessel may have looked like. (photo from Paramount Pictures)

The most jarring element in Noah from a Jewish perspective is the presence of angels, called “Watchers” and manifested as angry, hulking, walking, talking rock piles. Punished by God for trying to intervene on behalf of Adam and Eve, the Watchers decide to help Noah – and, by extension, serve their Creator – build the ark and then repel the hordes who desperately attempt to board when the hard rain starts a-fallin’.

At a crucial moment, the Watchers are redeemed for their sacrifice and return to the heavens like Roman candles. Polls report that a majority of Americans believe in angels, so for some viewers this sequence will mark the emotional high point of the movie.

Amid the concessions to visual effects-driven miracles, Noah manages to convey the nasty, brutish world of the Bible. At the same time, it demolishes Noah’s cloak of absolute good to demonstrate that no person is devoid of flaws and fallibility.

The film does not, alas, evoke the strength and power of the Bible’s matriarchs, for its female characters – Noah’s wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and a young girl (Emma Watson) saved and raised by the family who grows up to be Shem’s love interest – are given little to do in the second half except cry, shriek and sob.

The biggest obstacle to a visual rendering of Noah’s mythic saga, though, is that we know how the reboot of civilization turned out. We’re living it. So the optimistic rainbow at the end of Noah has all the credibility and gravitas of a Hallmark commercial.

Whether we see the modern world as the inevitable manifestation of human nature in all its glories and depravities or as a technologically supercharged Sodom, Noah makes us ponder the fate of the world as a function of our interdependence as well as our individual morality. Should we fear God’s anger and another flood, or (as the movie hints) is a self-inflicted die-off from environmental destruction just as likely? Either way, Noah represents a powerful admonition to humankind.

What’s intriguing about a repeat apocalypse is that it would be a communication from a God who’s been silent for centuries. The power of Noah, one could say, is to remind us that every cloud has a silver lining.

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.