The Noah

source: The Noah

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.

The Noah is a tale of humanity's sole survivor after world war three. We find our 'protagonist' (the term barely applies) alone on an island beach, he is an old dog US soldier. Soon he succumbs to the agony of total loneliness, and this is the film- we are exposed to his delusional and hallucinatory world, made up mostly of nostalgic political/military themed reminiscences. This is the last movie role for Robert Strauss (a sturdy character actor who was all over the silver screen during the 1950's). Strauss is the only actor in the movie, a challenge that he pulls off superbly. The film was made in Puerto Rico in 1968, was never theatrically released, and was first seen in 1975- this is a very obscure film. The beginning and ending suited me nicely, be sure to look for the various cultural icons that are generously sprinkled throughout (The famous Rita Hayworth WW2 pinup poster, busts of chairman Mao, etc.) The ending does contain suspense and a haunting moment, but I don't think anyone under 35 yrs of age will 'get it'. I gave The Noah five out of ten stars because this film needed to have about 15 minutes edited out, its a tad boring or tedious sometimes.

I had only known Robert Strauss as one of the funny privates in the movie Stalag 17. I never knew that he had a starring role of his own in his own movie. The sad thing about this is that he died right at the time of the movies release. It's in black and white which adds even more dark contemplation to the mood! I recommend this singularly unique, unusually different film I've never seen its like before! Watch it!

It would be easy to dismiss this film as dull, and although there's no doubting the fact that I found this film very boring, I'm going to try to explain why this film's very unique concept just didn't come together in the end. That's what I've got to give the film kudos for: it's an original idea: not just being stranded on a desert island, but assessing a man's insanity by recreating a world all from his memory and imagination. Also, you can't fault the filmmakers for having a real stab at this weird way of showing the insanity that comes with isolation, and some of the sequences, especially those using historical recordings, were interesting to see attempted. However, in the end, it just doesn't work, largely because it's impossible to get engrossed in this film. It's an interesting story, but it's such an inaccessible way of presenting it, with unthinkably slow pacing, and a very pretentious latter stage that borders on the incomprehensible, and that all comes together to not only make this hard to understand, but exhausting to get through, being one of the heaviest film that I know I'll ever see. One of the other things that frustrated me about this film was Richard Strauss' performance. His chemistry with the voices in his head is weirdly brilliant in the opening stages, and it makes for some intrigue, but it's his descent from isolation to insanity to complete madness as the film goes on that I just didn't buy. His performance is ultimately not only intriguing, but it's annoying. He shouts his way through minutes on end of dialogue with himself, so loudly and incessantly that it just hurt my ears watching it, and was perhaps one of the most painful and draining periods of a film I've ever seen. www.themadmovieman.com

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.

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.

I have only seen the last portion of this film on a cable channel about five or six years back (I think it was City College's channel, which frequently runs unusual film courses). I remember when THE NOAH came out in the middle 1970s. There was a review of it in NEW YORK MAGANZINE, and it got panned. But when it was shown on television it was treated with considerable respect. Basically (and ironically, as Strauss died after it was briefly released) it was Strauss's biggest chance to display his own acting skills to their widest. After his two appearances with Billy Wilder and his THE ATOMIC KID with Mickey Rooney, he was basically relegated to small support roles of a comic nature. He did have a recurring part as "Charlie Leech" the private eye who discovers that "Samantha Stevens" (Elizabeth Montgomery) was a witch on BEWITCHED, but he was only in a handful of episodes there. Strauss was always game for acting roles, and was perfectly willing to try carrying an entire film on his own shoulders. Here it was (except for two voices) as the sole human being left on earth after a nuclear war. One recalls the unfolding, unstoppable tragedy of ON THE BEACH, but there the citizens of Australia did have each other to live with until they all died in the end. Here Strauss is on an island, well stocked with food and supplies, and with radio contact to the rest of the globe. But there is no "rest of the globe" to contact. Initially he meets the situation with vague disbelief, then panic. But gradually he determines to face the end of humanity (in himself) with dignity. Our last image of Strauss on film is rather stoical, watching to see if anyone will show up after all, but determined not to give into temptation to make a fast end of it if he can. I wish the film was shown again - it was not as worthless a picture as the critic in NEW YORK MAGAZINE made it seem. And it gave Strauss a fine coda role to his underused career.

Truly remarkable. A one-man film that held my full attention for almost two hours. The storyline is deceptively simple given the complexity of the issues raised: the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust tries to cope with his new reality by reconstructing, piece by piece, an imaginary civilization based on his memories, fears and desires. It is this illusion that will eventually bring him to face his utter loneliness and powerlessness. Rendered in stark B/W photography, densely punctuated with historical references (including authentic voice recordings of the protagonists of 20th-century history), 'The Noah' is the kind of film that challenges the viewer to see it again and again, each time discovering something new. But where can it be found? I saw it at a CUNY-TV showing years ago. To my knowledge there has not been another TV showing and there is no VHS or DVD of it anywhere.

The Noah