Blue Biblical Blood

Darren Aronofsky, known for his offbeat and disturbing portrayal of broken characters in his films, has adapted one of the most important biblical stories from the Old Testament. This one's got Aronofsky's signature all over it and makes the viewer squirm which is just what is required of art.

I'll try to give a point by point summary of how this ancient myth has been re-imagined.

1. Subtle God
Unlike the booming voiceover for God portrayed in preceding feature representations of Biblical accounts, this one has a silent God who communicates with Noah through dreams. The interaction is much more personal unlike a scenario where anyone could walk-in to a conversation being held between them.

2. Noah's misunderstanding
Since there is no direct communication, Noah is under the impression that God desires the death of all humans, including Noah's family. He pledges to carry out this supposed instruction no matter what, which of course propels him to warn the impending murder of any girl child born to his daughter-in-law. This was a masterstroke, especially when it comes to Indian viewing audiences because female infanticide is an unspoken rule of family planning in our part of the world.

3. Methuselah
This is just an honorary mention of Noah's grandfather, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins because he immediately made the viewer value this character which wasn't an important part of the original biblical account.

The title of this post doesn't pertain to anything in those preceding paragraphs of course. One major fact that is persistently troubling concerns the matter of how human species propagated following this Great Flood. How did this single blue blooded family give rise to a varied species of homosapiens? How did they even give birth to a single species through interbreeding without accumulating physical defects leading to annihilation of the entire species? The answers you get for this are the usual empty statements proclaiming how the Creator works in mysterious ways, or the pure DNA of this first family of humanity. This is of course pure nonsense.

Lies built upon lies to create an interesting survival story instead of just boring existence.