An Atheist's Perspective

I too am an atheist and, though I'm not the Aronofsky fan you are, I thought this a well-made interesting film with a well fleshed-out script, excellent performances, and much visual poetry. But I think you err when you call this a look at Christianity. I can't agree. Its story is part of a long and ancient mythic tradition which doesn't belong solely to any one religion, but is a complex seeded both by religious and non-religious sources. I do agree it portrays its central (though unseen) deity figure as psychopathic, which pretty well describes the deities of most religions, the Abrahamic ones first and foremost. But I don't see how it could be denied those religious portray it as such.

As for the character of Noah, he's multi-layered and believable, nothing like the flat stick figure of his Christian incarnation. I don't think of his dilemma as "mental illness, though. He's someone placed under inconceivable stress by a horrifying task. He watches his world destroy while saddled with the guilt of being one of the few to survive it. This experience would leave any sane man deeply torn, conflicted, and ravaged by doubts. If you think about it, his obsession with killing his own children can't be much different from the tale's deity.

The difference is, Noah at last spares his.


Religion is like a rocking chair -- a lot of work to get nowhere.

It was as if Noah were afflicted with mental illness.

Mental illness was exactly what we thought. We're not religious in our house. We are gobsmacked that ANY person would think these stories are literally true. But this film? Just a dark, confusing mess with Noah being a big JERK. Overall, we were glad we didn't pay for this film.




You know what they say... no one with missing teeth wears an Armani suit.

Why do you say it sheds a unique light on the Christian faith, and why do you say the Christian faith is made out to be psychopathic? Christianity wouldn't come into being for quite some time and so this movie sheds no more light on Christianity than it does Islam which, like Christianity, is a child religion of Judaism. The story of Noah, like all the Old Testament myths, comes from the Torah, not the Bible or the Koran, so if anything you should be saying it shines a unique light on Judaism and makes the Jewish faith look psychopathic (which it doesn't).

What was Aronofsky trying to say in this film? I don't think much of anything. He simply was trying to tell the Genesis flood narrative in an entertaining and, while not exactly believable, a more believable way than the source material. After all, we all know you can't expect lambs to survive laying down with lions and that a handful of ancient people alone could never build an ark of that magnitude.

Burn in HELL devil worshipper!!!!!

I couldn't agree more on what the writer of this topic wrote.
Amen to all of that. PS Atheist also here.

thank you! It's so underrated! And I am a firm christian believer.

I consider Noah to be essentially the companion piece to The Fountain. Even production-wise, you will see many similarities. The riot scenes with the mob coming to take over the Ark are stylistically the same as the Mayan attack in the beginning of Fountain. The Angel's transfiguration before the flood is essentially a different take on Tom's "sacrifice" during the climactic supernova scene. There are many other similar instances in terms of appearance. But thematically there is also a strong connection.

The two movies are concerned with the two trees in the garden of Eden. Whereas Fountain dealt with the tree of life, Noah deals with the tree of knowledge. In the Fountain, the protagonist seeks eternal life and through his adventures arrives at accepting his death and sacrifice as part of the life cycle, relinquishing his fear of death and hunger for eternity. In Noah, the situation is the complete opposite. Noah is burdened by the knowledge of impending doom and his survival guilt and believes he and his family (and the human race in general) are not worthy of going on. He longs for death, yet is bound by the knowledge of his duty, so his journey here is the complete opposite of Fountain, until he comes to accept his (and humanity's) survival. See also the similar climactic scene in Pi with the drill. The protagonist there chooses not to know. This is also the meaning of the scene where Noah gets drunk, forsaking knowledge. This is why this scene is followed by his reconciliation with his family and Noah accepting his place in the new world.


... it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better.