Noah movie review

Story: The Story of Noah according to Darren Aronofsky.

Review: This is not your Biblical account of Noah as told during your Sunday School. As a former seminarian and a theologian with Presbyterian background, I like the movie. Allow me to explain why.

Photo courtesy of UIP

We grew up with stories as told in Sunday School about Noah. Even though the story is written like myth because of its nature. To the Jews and Christians, it really happened. It is backed by archaeological facts that in Mt. Ararat, Turkey; there are fragments of the ark found and the geological survey proved that the area was once in high sea level. The Bible was not written during the Creation story because the first time the Scriptures was written in documentation was after the exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem. Before that, it was only by word of mouth tradition. It is also possible that the nomadic Hebrews borrowed stories from other cultures or witnessed the same deluge. Either way, it is probably one proof that it happened.

One example was the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh. Just like in Noah's Great Flood, there is also a Deluge. Most of the stories in the Bible are also incomplete because of lack of explanation. You have to read non-canonized text for background. If it weren't for the Gilgamesh epic, it won't back up the story of Noah that it really happened. My interpretation of the movie that it combined the Biblical canon, the non-canonized texts and the Deluge myth stories in one.

There are also additional proofs that supports the Noah story through modern scientific methods. There were expeditions in Mt. Ararat in Turkey, as mention in Genesis, the final resting place of Noah's Ark and found old fragments of wood that dates back during the Patriarchal times and was backed up by geological survey that there was high sea level over the horizon.

There was a documented photograph from the pre-Soviet Russia that they came across the Ark in Ararat by a biplane and they had successfully explored the Ark's remains but failed to came back for the second time when they no longer saw the Ark as if the earth swallowed it.

The story may differ from the well-loved Bible story because of minor inaccurate details but the relevance of the story still has a religious aspect of it.. I believe that more information can only be found in the Book of Enoch which is probably the best source of the movie. One inaccurate detail that I really like was the naming of the women which makes it more inclusive. The Biblical context paid no emphasis on what the women's names were.

My only concern about the movie was that the make-up artist didn't make the actors look more ethnically accurate just like what Jim Caviezel look like as Jesus in The Passion of The Christ. Noah will be shown in the Philippines on June 11 and was distributed and released by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures Philippines. For more movie reviews, like L.E.N.S. blogs on Facebook or follow this blog site.