The Noah

With an unmistakable degree of profundity, the 1975 film The Noah, directed by Daniel Bourla and featuring performances from Robert Strauss, Geoffrey Holder, and Sally Kirkland, delves into the complex terrains of human psyche, loneliness, survival, and the conception of society itself. Staging an intricate existentialistic debate, the film wrestles with profound questions of what it means to be human.

The story unfolds around Noah, a character brought to life with considerable depth by Robert Strauss. Noah is an American soldier who finds himself alone on an uninhabited island after a third world war has ravaged the planet, making him possibly the last man alive. The post-apocalyptic environment that the film crafts is rich with symbolic elements and riddles with deceptively simplistic plotlines that introspect into the human condition's bleak and loneliest moments.

Simultaneously, a humorous and tragic figure, Noah's journey to preserve his sanity in utter isolation promptly transforms into a much larger narrative about the human mind at its most vulnerable, probing into our inherent need for companionship and societal structures.

The film ingeniously explores his solitary isolation and his desperate measures to escape it, leaving the audience captivated and involved in his struggle exceeding mere survival. Noah begins to create imaginary friends, voiced by Geoffrey Holder and Sally Kirkland, to keep his sanity intact. These two voices become critical components of the narrative, lending the film an eerie, hypnotic quality. Their interactions with Noah provide valuable insight into various aspects of societal existence, politics, war, education, law enforcement, love, and religion.

Bourla unfolds the narrative in The Noah at a slow and deliberate pace, providing ample breathing room for the undercurrents of existentialist concerns to rise to the surface, making the film an immersive psychological journey through loneliness and the human need for social and emotional connections. It is mesmerizing to watch how Noah establishes his society, where Holder and Kirkland's voices become distinctive characters – not entirely real but vital for Noah's mental stability. This unique manner of storytelling presents an intriguing allegory of structure and order creation in an otherwise desolate world.

The film's stark aesthetic, almost entirely limited to Noah's barren island, is based on minimalistic design elements – an intentional choice that serves to amplify Noah's aloneness. The cinematography and the deliberate pacing contribute significantly to creating an atmosphere that encapsulates the chilling despair engendered by the desolate landscape of a world wiped clean of human civilization.

Robert Strauss' performance is the linchpin of the movie. He effectively brings to life Noah's angst, despair, the cravings of the soul for companionship, and his purposeful drive to ward off loneliness by creating an existence reminiscent of his past life. It's an intense, moving performance that carries the whole film on its shoulders, backed up by the excellent voice acting of Holder and Kirkland.

The director uses distinct sound designs to evoke a sense of reality in the absence of human life. Using audio tapes with ambient sounds such as birds chirping, the rustling of leaves, and other natural sounds, the film attempts to fill the profound silence of the isolated island. The juxtaposition of these sounds against the silence and hopeless void of Noah's existence plays a crucial role in creating the film’s unusual and eerie atmosphere.

The Noah, released in 1975, is an unusual but mesmerizing film. Its unusual narrative combined with a powerful performance by Robert Strauss and distinctive sound design make it an intriguing exploration of the human psyche and the need for social structures in our lives. Conceptually, the film pushes the boundaries of conventional filmmaking and challenges the audience's thoughts about their perceptions of loneliness and society. The themes and concerns raised in The Noah still resonate deeply, making it a compelling watch and an enduring vehicle of introspection.