When the credits began floating up the screen at the end of Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” my sister Diane said, “Boy, I’m glad that’s over.”  It was not an easy film to watch.  Having been charmed by the sunny Sunday school pictures of Noah and the happy ark, we are disturbed by his bringing to life the darker images that lurk at the margins of those pages of scripture. Noah did get shamelessly drunk, and it could very well have been because he blamed himself for his inability to carry out what he assumed to be God’s grand plan to “wipe mankind from the face of the earth” (Genisis 6:7). 

               And that’s one thing I liked about the film, that God speaks to Noah the way he speaks to me, ambiguously, through suggestions of the spirit rather than directly, unequivocally.  And I liked the giants.  They are mentioned in the scripture, and how else would Noah have been able to build an ark large enough to house 2 of every kind and seven of every kind, both clean and unclean?

               I did object to the environmentalists themes. I know the environment is important to Aronosfsky, but to insert that theme where it doesn’t belong is rude and disrupting. To suggest, as illustrated by the tortured tree trunks and the barren land, that the few people who populated the earth at that time could have caused such devastation of the planet was blatantly absurd.  I also objected to the suggestion that man’s eating of flesh demonstrated the height of his depravity.  On that issue, however, I returned to the text and discovered that after the flood God blessed Adam telling him that everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you green plants, I now give you everything” (Genisis 9:3) which suggests that pre flood flesh was forbidden?   

               According to the scripture, all three sons brought their wives onto the ark.  Perhaps Noah’s refusing to rescue Ham’s chosen was simply to add conflict.  It probably didn’t seem sufficient that Ham should be cursed simply for seeing his father’s naked body, but I reckon it is important for a son to come to terms with the sins of the father.

               It was a disturbing film, but maybe we need to be disturbed, dislodged from our complacency, forced to reckon with the tumult of the day.