Noah - The Film Review Based on The Trailer.

**SPOILERS**

Russell Crowe leads in another star studded historical vanity piece where he follows in the great shoes of… erm… Steve Carrell... to play Noah in the story of the ark and the great flood and all the animals coming by two by two and the widespread incest that presumably followed the cataclysm. Before you write the film off completely for all its bible-isms, realise that this is a Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan), so it is time to put on your credible film watching hat as you watch this visually arresting but extremely po-faced yet hilariously melodramatic event film. 

THE PLOT 

As Noah, the Crowe is a noble and humble patriarchal man, with long free flowing hair and man beard. Noah is obviously aware of the sin around him, represented here by a dark and gritty colour palette and scenes of the sex, violence and general bastardry. Obviously Noah is only one man, so he tries to do the best he can, leading a quietly saintly life devoted to God and his family represented by his wife Jennifer Connelly and his adopted daughter Emma Watson. Adopted. See? Selfless. What a guy. 

Because you're worth it. 

The Crowe has a dream of the world ending after God throws a hissy fit. The big cheese has seen far too much sex and violence, drunken debauchery and twerking and would rather just kill all of humanity and get back to making something cooler. Maybe dinosaurs, dragons, space Whales or an array of sharky hybrids. 

His dream is only validated by sagely old Sir Anthony Hopkins, who provides further validation that this cataclysm is DEFINITELY coming. To save his family and all that is good in the world, Noah selflessly constructs an ark to brave the oncoming storm. It won’t be easy building a wooden titanic so things have to get serious. Witness the Crowe undergo a full on ‘Heisenberg’ transition and shave his head. He has no time for washing his hair or indeed annoyingly having his hair blow in his face. Things are literally that serious.  

Not too many people take kindly to Noah’s ark building, here represented by the masses led by Ray Winstone’s cockney king. With Noah being a lowlier man, now sporting a shaved head, building this massive awesome boat thing and denying anyone else a place on it. It’s like he is saying that he is better than all of them. Sort of a dick move from Noah, you can sort of see where Ray Winstone is coming from.    

Animal hordes come forth!

The Crowe is not alone, and so comes the first money shot, a computer generated horde of animals gathering at the ark. As cinema has taught us, animals have developed a six sense when disaster is about to strike and so they orderly board Noah’s ark.  

The storm comes, meteorites fall, water literally explodes out of the earth and all this coincides with a big epic battle sequence where Ray Winstone’s army of blasphemous heathens try to take the ark. He was here to 'kill your monster' in Beowulf, he is her today to 'take your ark'. Big words, but they fail and mostly drown once the flood hits.

"...On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened"

"...On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened"

This all leads up to the second payoff, in which the realistically recreated ark braves the big computer generated storm of legend. There is a massive hill in the background and the whole audience is left to wonder why the survivors did'nt just run for the hills? Anyway things are getting mightily tense, as the ship creaks into action and all of Noah's resolve is put to the test in a head on match with big beard himself. 

Despite all the spectacle and drama you always know that The Crowe will make it out in the end. It is scripture after all. If Noah's ark were to get destroyed and everything killed, you wouldn't have a movie would you? Well... you would, but it would be an extremely depressing and nihilistic film. Potentially it would be a brave retelling of the Noah parable where one man's misdirection from a non existent omnipotent entity gets all of his family killed despite his 'faith' and good intentions. This film will only be seen by the pretentious naval gazing crowd and for a movie costing upward of $130 million it would ultimately be a flop, so best play it safe. 

The flood eventually subsides and the ark opens up and the survivors walk upon terra firma once again. The Crowe sees the flower from his dream and smiles quietly to himself before joining his family as they walk off to start a new world. 

The movie went on to gross $800 million altogether, thanks in part to the retrofitted 3D and of course the repeat viewings from the US bible belt. The film achieved all this, despite the awkward implication that all of civilisation is basically inbred. You, me, your friends, your pets we are all essentially inbred and it's all thanks to Noah. This is what this movie is saying. This was the ultimate intention of film maker Darren Aronofsky. A brave inward looking point indeed.  

FAVOURITE BITS FROM THE MOVIE

• All the bible references. Genesis is easily my favourite part of the bible and I was a fan before everybody else was. Genesis FTW.  
• Sir Anthony Hopkins' death scene, in which he is cruelly killed by Winstone's men for blasphemy against the king. He dies in The Crowe's arms and with his last dying breath whispers "build the ark, save as many as you can". That was pure acting. 
• The hair shaving scene. Badass. 
• The bit when The Crowe selflessly risks his life to save one baby stick insect amidst the storm and all the fighting.
• The bit when The Crowe seizes the opportunity to selflessly save the life of his mortal enemy Ray Winstone in the midst of the storm, putting the whole plan at risk. But at the last moment, the cockney heathen king is snatched away by the waters, because God intends it. Unsuccessful but at least his intentions were good. The Crowe gains even more good karma from the saint McHero bank of the collective audience's mind.
• The bit when the bear saves Emma Watson from the rapist. Such a cool bear. 
• The bit when the elephant farted, and everybody was like… "dayum… that shit is naaasty" 

THE VERDICT

Noah threatens to make the old testament cool once again in a largely athiest society. With a star studded cast, big scenes of apocalyptic action with fireballs and lots and lots of barbarian sodomists drowning as they fucking well should. Undoubtedly this paves the way for the gritty bible story adaptation franchise. Of which we can expect great things like the Moses movie in 2016 starring Liam Neeson as the cantankerous Hebrew. Then of course we have the big one to look forward to. The Jesus trilogy kickstarting with Jesus Begins: Straight out of Bethlehem in 2017. 

All hail God.

5/5 

A Parting Gif

Black Swan - bonkers doesn't even cut it...

Certificate: 15

Duration: 108 minutes

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershley, Winona Ryder

Black Swan is the latest film from Darren Aronofsky and has rather interestingly divided audiences like marmite. Some have seen it as a powerful thriller with disturbing elements of a psychological horror, whilst others have written it off as a laughable melodrama, that takes itself way too seriously to be actually considered serious at all. This hasn’t stopped the film from collecting several nominations in the run up to the award season of course, with Natalie Portman and Aronofsky all up for the most prestigious accolades. Take from that what you will.    

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a young professional ballerina for the New York City Ballet School. She leads a highly disciplined and sheltered lifestyle, with her ever so slightly domineering mother (Barbara Hershley). In an attempt to raise interest in the ballet school, director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) wants to put on a daring version of Swan Lake, where the two opposing characters of the white and black swan are played by the same dancer. Desperate for the part, Nina auditions for the part, only to be told that whilst she can effortlessly encapsulate the white swan, as an icon of virtue and chastity, she is not well suited to the role of black swan, which requires a far more darker and imperfect edge to portray. Regardless, Nina is selected for the role after Leroy catches a glimpse of her when he tries to have his way with her. Much work is needed though and in order to dance as the black swan, Nina must effectively become the black swan and step out of her highly regulated comfort zone and embrace the dark side, if you’ll excuse the reference. Unfortunately for Nina, she will have to do much more than go out clubbing on a school night and getting touched up by Vincent Cassel in order to become the Black Swan. She will have to undergo a literal and harrowing psychological transformation, all in the name of perfection and pleasing all those god awful high brow cultural snobs out there.  

Remember kids. No means No.

Black Swan has been widely regarded as the spiritual sequel to Aronofsky’s last film, The Wrestler released in 2009 famously starring Mickey Rouke as a washed out wrestler, a role which conveniently mirrored the actors own unfortunate background. Indeed, both movies share a lot of similarities, those scenes in The Wrestler particularly in regards to the staples reveal the pain the wrestlers put themselves through to give the audience a show. Black Swan similarly reveals how the dancers, particularly Natalie Portman’s character suffer for their art, through split toe nails and bone cracking physiotherapy sessions. Some critics have called Black Swan the feminine version of the Wrestler, with both movies featuring characters who exist in a performative space. It isn’t strictly true because those who did see the Wrestler will remember Marisa Tomei’s character Cassidy, a stripper, who is basically acts as a feminine version of Mickey Rourke’s character.  If we are to draw a distinction between the two movies, Black Swan deals with performing characters at the level of high art, whilst The Wrestler deals with the lower end of the cultural spectrum. Black Swan is about the attainment of perfection, whilst the Wrestler is about faking it.

I don’t really know much about ballet, my only previous engagement with the medium is probably watching Billy Elliot, which also features Swan Lake at the very end. Whilst Black Swan features Swan Lake it also uses it as a template, using the plot as a vehicle for Nina’s own personal metamorphoses and when you watch it like this, the film is a much more satisfying experience. It is also for this reason that the movie becomes very predictable, as life imitates art or art imitates life for an explosive finale. Whilst some have described the movie as a ‘mindfuck’, Black Swan is very easy to follow and understand.    

Black Swan has a fairly strong cast throughout. Natalie Portman is the main crux for the entire movie and is wholly believable as a pint sized ballerina, a perfectionist who lives for her art so narrow mindedly. Mila Kunis who stars as a fellow dancer in the movie, is well played representing everything Nina is not. A muse of sorts and most importantly a natural fit for the black swan being far more sexually liberated than Nina. I did have one problem with Kunis’ character… The actress is most famous for providing the voice for Meg in family guy. A character so abhorred and disliked by the cartoon’s audience, that the creators themselves are obliged to write her off as an unsympathetic hate figure. Turning up every so often to receive a tirade of abuse. So everytime Mila Kunis is on the screen, I’m instinctively like ‘shut up Meg’.  And I know, that isn’t very critic savvy of me but hey ho, its just what I felt. The other characters are pretty good, Vincent Cassel as the manly patriarch of the ballet school is a strong and dominating presence even if the film is slightly unsure on how to play him, either as an inspirational teacher or a sexual predator. Winona Ryder is also in the movie and… well lets just say she can do crazy very well. 

The main problem I had with the movie is that it is absolutely bonkers. Which is also perhaps why I actually quite liked it. Thematically it can be described as a psychological thriller because it has all the traits of the genre, but how it executes them is sometimes so over the top and laugh out loud funny, there is a very real danger of wetting yourself. Perhaps it is the only way to do a thriller set in the highly emotionally charged world of professional ballet, this is in contrast to The Wrestler which was very subtle, grounded with a clear sense of realism.  Some scenes are supposed to be funny, for instance in one scene Cassel’s character with all his French roguery orders Nina to go home and masturbate in attempts to loosen her up a bit, and unlock the inner black swan within. Which sure enough leads up into a full on masturbatory scene, which is guaranteed to have audiences rolling in the aisles. In other places the film is unintentionally funny especially in regards to the ways it handles the horror dimension, usually involving Nina catching glimpses of her evil doppelganger here and there. In particular, there is a fight scene towards the end which I couldn’t help feel owed much to a sequence in Happy Gilmore. 

Is your reflection turning against you? Perhaps you're insane too!

Whilst some people like myself may have the film spoiled by the intense melodrama, others are guaranteed to buy into the story completely. I just felt that with some of the moments, Aronofsky was reaching out of the scream and slapping everybody in the face, as if saying “Come on its just a movie, don’t take it so seriously, I want an easy oscar!” When leaving the theatre, I overheard a lot of people saying how marvelous and shocking the film was.  Whilst nothing is as shocking as events from Aronofsky’s other movie Requiem for a Dream.

In conclusion, Black Swan is an interesting enough movie to go out and see at the cinema. Suffice it to say, despite all the film’s inherent silliness, the ballet scenes are really good and deserve to be seen on the big screen. In summation Black Swan is a story that can be interpreted in many different ways. It is about the loss of innocence and how one young lady attempts to define herself within a world which can only objectify her in one of two ways. The white swan and the black swan, the virgin and the harlot. Neither of which are very substantial.  Even though it is a film about ballet, Portman’s character still very much exists within a man’s world, under the dominion of Vincent Cassel’s school director. It is also a film about art and the pursuit for perfection.  And of course, if you are still unconvinved, if you still don't find yourself interested with all this high fallutin’ talk about art and feminism then you might be interested in knowing that the film also contains a full on lesbian sex scene between Portman and Kunis...

Zang! And that is probably a decent point to end on. 

It'll be alright on the night!