I intimately remember the moment I knew I had to watch this film. It was the day after seeing mother! and we had gone in search of answers, there was a reddit AMA with Aronofsky. One of my friends read allowed from it; “do you have a dream project? yes, I already made it and it was Noah.”

After making a joke about Woody Harrelson’s infamous Rampart AMA on the site, stopping to explain that and finding extracts from it. We worked out none of us had seen Noah, watched the trailer and resolved to keep it that way. But I kept thinking about Noah, what was it? how could someone ever say that a religious christian epic, the type of film made exclusively as a box office bank raid, was your dream project? Noah gnawed at me, I wondered if it was some secret work of genius hidden in plain sight? or perhaps Aronofsky had made the driest of jokes?

Now that I have finally seen it, I can say that it’s director was not trying to mislead me, Noah comes from a genuine place it appears to be a dream project. But I can’t say much else, I’m not any closer to understanding Aronofsky, or the bible, or the great flood. This is not the film to watch so you can avoid reading the book for school. Honestly I’m not sure it was a film made for Christians at all.

I do wonder about that, did Americas bible belt file into the cinemas and have to explain to their kids why a boy was so earnestly kissing Emma Watson ‘down there?’ Was there a hasty Sunday school lesson on rock golems and their place in the final battle for the Ark? did a babysitter expecting an easy night have to explain to their charges that Noah’s not generally considered a genocidal maniac?

But artists have been depicting bible stories since before it was the bible and often even if the faith was the patron their works were not immediately appreciated. I found it difficult to reconcile the message of saving humanity with the biblical part of also needing to destroy it. It’s interesting how much this film comes across as an advert for seasteading or a mars colony ship, maybe that’s just billionaires taking themselves as god and the bible as a guidebook. There are no new stories.

I can’t really rate this in stars, I guess we’ll have to come back in 2100 and see Aronofsky’s ecofascist worldview wins out.