Noah (2014)
The last time we saw Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in a successful movie together* she was the distressed love interest to a fragile man plagued by piques of insanity, hearing voices and hallucinating inspirational yet terrifying visions, slowly and incrementally losing his tenuous grasp of reality. It was a paranoid formula which led to Oscars galore, winning Best Picture, Supporting Actress, Script and Director back in 2001, with nominations in many of the other major categories as well. Many among the critical fraternity, myself included, found that film mawkish, absurd and overbearing in its strutted seriousness, with the odd attractive montage sequence which soured the saccharine texture of Ron Howard’s lacklustre and staid direction. You can probably divine where I’m going with this but this time the barking megalomaniac is Darren Aronofsky, finally wielding some financial clout after the Oscar-winning Black Swan it seems he still has this gnawing urge to tell the story he had grazed in The Fountain out of his system, an epic fantastical tale of faith and creation, the splitting and sundering of worlds both physical and emotional. First of all an ominous burning bush warning – there is a specific element of this film which nervous Paramount Executives successfully expunged from all the marketing material, an affectation which is essential to discuss in order to fully explore the film. Technically I guess this is a ‘spoiler’ in that sense but given that this element is revealed in the first ten minutes of the film it’s not anything as revealing as a plot twist, but I’ll be referencing this from the synopsis onward so consider yourself ‘warned’ if you’re really that concerned about such trivialities. So from a box-office perspective Noah is not the waterlogged failure that early industry shamans predicted, and initial reports that disgruntled North American Christian literalists fled preview screenings wailing at the liberties taken with the source material made me think of the geek squad similarly screeching away at message boards bemoaning the latest Superman Versus Batman casting rumour. Truly this is an age of terrible wonders as I mostly find myself agreeing with Christian fundamentalists – this film is a deeply frustrating, cosmological mess…..
Extrapolated from a slim four pages of Old Testament text it feels almost ridiculous to attempt a plot synopsis of one of Western civilisations most enduring myths, but as Aronofsky has repeatedly pointed out whilst sailing the current marketing tsunami the water cataclysm is an enduring parable that has soaked into many cultures and religions – fair point. Grizzled Noah (Russell Crowe), resplendent with his dutiful wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) has been suffering strange visions and apparitions as he and his family scourge a pitiful existence among the creators fallen Eden. Man has been tempted by the serpent and fallen from grace, paradise now a barren and inhospitable realm where bandits and marauders steal and murder with impunity. Noah translates the visions as an instruction to visit his father Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) and obtain further insight, thus it was so that an epic quest is undertaken, traversing the barren lands and meeting the fallen angels entombed as rock heavy golems (voiced by Frank Langella and Nick Nolte in the first slice of divergent madness), and rescuing the young waif Ila from murderous thugs. She soon grows up to be Emma Watson and falls for the blue-eyed charms of Noah’s first son Japeth (Leo McHugh Carroll), leaving second son Ham (Logan Lerman) somewhat frustrated when he learns of the fate of the earth and the severely dwindling possibility of finding a mate of his own. For lo it has been intoned from on high that Noah the faithful should construct a fuck-off ark with his stone-skinned servants assistance, a holy crusade to preserve the creators bounty from the imminent water fuelled Armageddon, but local warlord Tubal-cain, (Ray Winstone) descendant of the original murderous father of sin has a different vision for the future of the planet and its exploitable species…..
After a collegial preview screening one can imagine Terry Gilliam getting onto the directors hot-line and demanding to be patched through to Aronofsky, and respectfully warning him to reign it in – this film is absolutely nuts, crazy, bonkers, berserk and any other adjective you care to throw at it, but unfortunately not in an altogether righteous way. My antipathy sprinted from an promisingly insane opening half-hour which swiftly degenerated into the pits of incoherence, overacting with a repellent moral universe, a slow and dreary ark bound act which is so sodden and lifeless I was praying for a righteous thunderbolt. It also doesn’t help that for many lurking aeons I have harboured and cultivated an animosity to both Winstone and Hopkins telegraphed by rote villains and mystical elder stereotypes, although the latter is actually a 16th level priest in this film (who casts sleep at one point, restoration the next) through the powers of some unexplained magical mumbo-jumbo which Aronofsky gleefully pours into each increasingly inconsistent and head-slapping induced scene. I don’t enjoy opting for Dungeons & Dragons metaphors but that is exactly where this film descends, complete with 18HD stone golems fighting with the evil men under Tubal-cain’s thrall, a mid-point Lord Of The Rings affectation which utterly damns any notion of this film chiefly concerned with deeper ideological psalms, the biblical baby thrown out with the metaphysical bath water. Most amusingly for infidels such as I – and when you’re laughing at overtly serious scenes your picture is in serious trouble – there are visions of wanton abandon, of evil, wicked and unrighteous humankind selling their children and kin for wine and gold with satanic glee, complete with heretics sporting industrial acetylene torch faceguards, building muskets and other tampering with blemished technology which make the cottage genre industry of Fundamentalist Christian films seem like models of subtly and religious harmony. It’s insane, but with a weeping sense of incoherence and juvenile moralism.
Aronofsky moulds his meiter from his furiously driven protagonists – wrestlers, ballerinas, scientists, mathematicians – masters of their profession, utterly obsessed with their individual quests at the risk of their body and sanity (imagine what Herzog could have done with this subject and six figure budget?), and there are a couple of superb montages charting the evolution of existence from the amoeba to the Miley Cyrus which remind one of the stuttering stop motion intensity of his debut feature π. In that sense this long mooted passion project of the director gives the film a circular rhythm from his own low-budget genesis, but alas it is the only filmmaking concession of interest which is soon overwhelmed by the facile metaphysics and medieval musings. Like his previous ambitious failure – and I suspect this is where some of you will check out as I know that film firmly divides the faithful from the agnostic when it comes to Aronofsky – like The Fountain this film is a steaming unresolved flotsam of character, theme and form which doesn’t find any emotional or visual alignment beyond the strictly superficial. One prays that the film’s environmental message will be the films saving grace, although the boat may have sailed on that front, but then again what do we critics really know?;
* Emphasis on the word successful here, this simply does not count….
Minty’s Movie Masterclass – Peter Weir
Strewth, ripper, barbie, fosters – yes, we’re off to Australia for this post so I hope you’ve packed your hunting knife and crocodile repellent. With the possible exception of John Hilcoat (I’m really looking forward to this) there is no Australian director I’ve enjoyed and admired as much as Peter Weir, the vanguard of the so called New Wave of Australian films that emerged onto the World’s film festivals in the 1970’s, garnering critical praise and awards in kind.
What Weir likes to ponder is the introduction of characters into alien environments, be they physical (The Truman Show), sociological (Green Card), cultural (Witness) or physiological (The Cars That ate Paris). He’s one of those few directors that emigrated to Hollywood and continued to work whilst exhibiting his trademark fascinations and themes in films ranging from the major big budget league to smaller, more intimate projects. I’ve tried a mixture of his Australian and American work as a sort of compare and contrast exercise, lets see how it goes.
‘Picnic At Hanging Rock‘ – Valentines Day, 1900. A group of Australian private schoolgirls and chaperone travel to local beauty spot Hanging Rock for a school excursion, an expedition that turns to tragedy when three of the girls and one teacher mysteriously vanish without a trace. Local search parties eventually locate one of the girls who has suffered concussion and remembers nothing of the event, the scandal and world global attention to the incident ultimately leading to the closure of the private school. Marketed as based on true events (in a manner reproduced by the Coens for their marketing of the great ‘Fargo’) the film is actually based on the non-fiction story of the same name by Joan Lindsay – until this viewing I was also under the misapprehension that it was in part based on a real incident, it seems my guillability knows no bounds eh?
What a wonderful, magical film that emits such an enchanting fable-like quality, something of an Alice in Wonderland savor transported to the eerie Australian outback. The soundtrack sells the opening act in conjunction with the slightly degraded yet luminous quality of the film stock which makes it feel that it was actually shot on the cusp of the 20th century, albeit in colour of course. The religious overtones seem obvious to me with Weir shooting his vision of the garden of Eden, an environment of breath-taking, timeless beauty that will consume the young women’s burgeoning sexuality, themes that are signaled throughout the dialogue and framing of the films outstanding ‘vanishing‘ sequence.
Once the incident has occurred the film moves onto the aftermath and search for the missing girls and teacher. It’s not really a spoiler to mention that the film offers no solutions to the mystery, no resolutions are offered and in fact the film raises new questions and conundrums as the amnesiac survivor is ostracised by her peers following her recovery and fails to assimilate back in her culture. Make your own mind up, come to your own conclusions – qualities that I always admire in a movie.
‘Master & Commander‘ – So the first of the American films on this post, this big Russell Crowe starring project was launched on to the high seas in 2003. It’s 1805 and Captain Aubrey (Crowe) is the Captain of the HMS Surprise, a British Royal Navy Frigate which is battling in the midst of the Napoleonic wars. The ship is instructed to locate and sink the French ship Acheron, a vessel lurking in the dangerous waters of the pacific ocean. An aquatic game of cat and mouse ensues as Aubrey uses all his nautical warfare skills best the French and bring honor to his majesty’s services.
This is quite an unusually authentic and smart blockbuster with some intriguing attention to detail which I suspect has been lifted from the popular source material. This realism extends to the exciting action scenes where we are not insulted with images of bayonet wielding officers swinging from ship to ship and dispatching scores of villainous curs in Errol Flynn swashbuckling style, in ‘Master’ we witness the real docile ‘playing dead’ tactics coupled with the use of weather and environmental conditions to gain the advantage in order to best your opponents.
I’m not big fan of Crowe’s – he was good in ‘Gladiator’ and of course ‘LA Confidential‘ but he generally leaves me cold. In ‘Master’ he effective portrays a plausible leader, a man whose crew would follow him to the jaws of Davy Jones locker itself. Good fun and recommended for a slightly more cerebral Saturday night movie. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a sequel yet as I’m sure it made money and there are a whole series of books to draw on, time will tell.
‘Gallipoli‘ – Once again we’re in turn of the century Australia for this highly regarded World War I movie. Two athletic and slightly competitive friends (they both excel in long distance running) comprising of the idealistic Archy (Mark Lee) and the roguish Frank (Mel Gibson in an early starring role) are recruited into the army to fight in the Australian campaign against Turkey, a battle that marked the countries entry into the global conflagration. As with all these films, the insanity and human cost of the war is explored along with the class divisions and murderous corruption of the officer class who are prepared to sacrifice regiments of their troops for a few feet of blood soaked soil.
The film is justifiably famous in Australia as the battle is considered as something of a turning point in the countries history, an event which symbolised Australia’s coming of age and loss of innocence which of course is reflected in Archies and Frank’s diverse fates. The early portions of the film worked better for me rather than the slightly predictable albeit effective finale. The sequences in Lake Torrens standing in for the West Australian desert were handsomely shot and it was also amusing to hear Jean Michel Jarre’s then (it was released in 1981) very futuristic ‘Oxygene‘ on the soundtrack as a musical cue for all the running sequences, a bit incongruous with the films time-frame but it works. Just.
Its an enjoyable enough film but it didn’t quite grasp my emotions as much as other war films have over the years. I’m actually struggling to think of anything else to say, I suppose it was nice to see a film back when Mel Gibson was y’know, good and watchable and hadn’t yet revealed himself to the be the mentally ill anti-semite that we’ve all come to know and love.
‘Fearless‘ – I believe this is one of the most underrated films of the 1990’s. Jeff Bridges is incredible, the plot is genuinely something different and heck, Weir even makes the grating Rosie Perez bearable. In the aftermath of a horrific air crash air crash Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) emerges unscathed from the wreckage, leading a young child and other dazed survivors to safety. The experience has deeply affected Max, he no longer fears death and the paradigm shift of the event has resulted in him observing the world in a different, detached and slightly hollow way which begins to isolate him from his family and colleagues.
Mystic? Healer? Angel? Saviour? What has happened to Max? Weir smuggles in a very profound art film in the shell of a Hollywood vehicle however it didn’t quite fully evade the executives radar as their are claims that the film was interfered with which lead to Weir’s taking five years before he came back with his biggest film, ‘The Truman Show’. Bridges is perfect as the alien, otherworldly Max (echoing of course his Oscar nominated role in this), cinematically isolated by sound wipes, framing and composition to communicate his growing withdrawal from his fellow man.
Isabella Rossellini is also terrific – she really should be in more films (three quick Rossellini facts, she was married to Martin Scorsese, is the daughter of legendary Italian director Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman and has a identical twin sister!) and there is also an early appearance of Benicio Del Toro as a typically shifty chancer who only wants to get as much compensation out of the airline for the death of his child, the mother being portrayed by a uniquely unannoying Rosie Perez who forms a platonic relationship with Max. It’s a close call with Picnic’ but this just pips it out of the four as ‘Fearless’ held my attention more, although they are both ambivalent movies with no obvious conclusions or resolutions it is Jeff Bridges mesmerizing performance that trumps the other movie.
So there you have it. From the IMDB link it doesn’t look like he has anything in development at the moment which is a shame, I’m sure he was in the frame to direct ‘Pattern Recognition‘ at one point and I swear he was attached to a film of this as well (as was Cronenberg) so lets hope he hasn’t hung up his monocle and riding crop.
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