Cortechba Overrated

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

sadenoo-665-566356 This is not at all what I expected. The film depicts what happens to one man who finds himself as the last survivor of the planet after a nuclear exchange. Emerging from a bunker, where the radiation has killed off everyone else, he comes out of a military bunker, begins his search for other life. This film is especially important today with the Nuclear threat being greater than it has been in 30 years. The hero is washed ashore on some Far Eastern Island, has food and shelter and nothing else, no animals, nothing. Is alone and isolated. I wondered as I watch it, How would I have coped. By the time the film was half over, I had an overwhelming respect and appreciation for my wife, and dog. I don't think I will ever be the same after watching it.

gengar843 This is a movie about America and generational shifts. The fact that it was originally shot in 1968 should give you a clue. Plot: old-school army veteran is stranded alone on an enemy (communist China) island outpost sometime after nuclear holocaust (presumably). There are several plot-lines which must resolve during the course of the film.The first is, How does a man - any man - deal with absolute loneliness and the hopelessness associated with knowing that no one else exists in the entire world? Of course, this a step or two beyond Tom Hanks' Cast Away, as there is hope for Hanks, even if the pathos at that movie's end is also debasing. For Robert Strauss, the tour-de-force participant and titular "The Noah," the resolution is quite dramatic if entirely expected. I won't spoil the actual progression of Noah's self-awareness or madness, as the case may be, but I would like to comment that it's not as cleverly done as Cast Away. On the other hand, the impact of The Noah is exceptional, and with subtlety.The second resolution must be, How does a World War 2 dog-of-war deal with the modern (for 1968) age? This is handled on several levels, some with skill, some with a ham fist - your view on which are which will likely be tied to your birth year. Those of "the greatest generation" will possibly feel a great sympathy for the lead character, while those of the "hippie generation" could find themselves alternately awed then nonplussed (younger than that, and you'll be lost, except as it concerns fictional empathy). Not that director Daniel Bourla gave Strauss much more material than playing off old audio tapes from history; or that the screen writing called for a narrow range of emotions, from crotchetiness to self-pity. This is the main weakness of the film itself.The third resolution must be the filmmaker's (and thus your) view of America, especially in juxtaposition with communism. Will you be disgusted, cheered, or bored by the "army" of Chairman Mao busts? Where will you fall in the melange of flags, uniforms, culture shifts, and overarching philosophies? I found the movie to be quite schizophrenic in this regard, and that added another stratum of complexity to an already meaty subject. Just to mention one scene, after the "graduation" the "natives" become restless and it appears that a revolution is brewing; the manner in which The Noah attempts to meet this challenge is fascinating but at the same time quite excruciating since there is little doubt on the end-game and therefore not a lot of tension.Other implications from 1968 are apparent here and there: (1) the obvious counter-cultural message from Friday and Anne-Friday; (2) the overbearing war soundtrack; (3) the selection and arrangement of historical excerpts. Most of this is a bludgeoning message and therefore may be disregarded as so much era-centered squealing.On the very plus side, the finale will mark you. It is deeply etching and undeniably disturbing. It is not that it ices a cake, but that it is the cake. We learn in fact that the entire movie was a baking process leading to a product, which is the final few minutes. It will make you judge the rest of the film that much more harshly, but maybe that's good.

ottfried This is one of these movies that linger.Following the total annihilation of the human race only one person appears to be alive. An old soldier, close to retirement, when the bombs start falling, escapes across the sea and finds himself on a deserted island, filled with derelict motor vehicles and empty military barracks showing a history of both chines and Japanese occupants.Loneliness creates an illusionary friend, whom he can be responsible for (and boss around), and by mistake he also makes a woman, who turns out to despise him. When his friend and the woman couple, he evicts both from his house (his mind).Then he makes a boy, and in quick succession more children, a whole school class, and education system and a graduation day, where he sends all of his students out to (re)populate the earth. But it soon turns out they make a mess of things - rather than coming to him, their teacher, for advice, they just squabble and murder one another. So he lays down simple rules - basically the stone tablets of Moses, but voiced as the simple man he is. But his children pay him no heed.From then on everything just goes downhill - his creations recreate all that went before his arrival to the island; the final third of the film sees The Noah, as his first friend called him, marching around the island trying to bring control at least to his illusionary military troops, while the recordings of global warfare and unrest rack his mind to the point, where he COMMANDS the silence be.He retracts to his bunk in the barracks, and silence falls on his world, the minute he closes his door. Here he discovers that the radioactive warning tag that he carries on his uniform has gone black. The rain was radioactive, and now he has no other mission but to wait for death.THIS is a brilliant movie! Forget the Biblical allegorical stuff and view it in a larger perspective: Whether messages came from a Maker or not, men translated the messages into words. I.e. Men made the world in their image - they made what they already were. The singular human being will always create the world in his own image - his loves, his fears, his longings, his desires, all that man makes is himself.The Noah tries to make a new world, and tries to take control of this new world, because this is how he is brought up - he tries to delegate responsibility and is disappointed; he tries to take full control, and is disappointed; he relinquishes responsibility and is disappointed; he closes his door on his creation, his fellow men and all their disappointments, and all he gets from all and everything he did, is death.A very poignant and eternal message: You are what you are, and so is your world. All changes must then come from within. We are human beings from how we deal with the perception of our world. The perception is the world - that is the weak and the strong point. There is no one reality, no right reality - only different views of wild wild nature.If you are not well versed in Roman languages, or the imagery of WWII and the Cold War, you'lld do best in getting a subbed version, so as to enjoy the cultural commentating embedded in the use of German, French, Italian, Spanish and other war commentators as well as people on the street in wartime.This is not an anti-war movie, as some might think - it's a film about reality.

j_chy I think that someone was trying to be allegorical. They Failed.The first 2/3 of the film are mildly interesting as Noah invents friends and something resembling _DRAMA_ shows up, you almost feel as if maybe a _PLOT_ might ensue. There are nascent _CHARACTERS_ and some minor _CONFLICTS_ hinting that a larger conflict could occur. (Protagonist is up the tree, we know that rocks can be thrown at him.. and we are eagerly anticipating the first volley...) But then....nothing happens.The final third of the film degrades into a cacophony of a history-buff's self-serving game with an audio tape recorder. All links to plot, allegory, drama, character, conflict, and sanity are severed. Maybe this is supposed to represent Noah's ever-less-grounded state of mind, but the degree of his grasp on reality was well-established earlier in the film and the noise becomes as annoying as a Phillip Glass composition.Now to 2 small details worth mentioning: 1)There are some weak humorous points such as Noah's ability to construct a latrine or Noah's resemblance to one of the Marx Brothers. 2)The in-your-face allusion to The 10 Commandments was out of place and over the top.