Film review: Noah by Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman

“Love in the time of social media”. Even at the cost of coining yet another paraphrase of Gabriel García Marquez's famous title, there are really few other words that could describe Noah so fittingly.

Shot entirely from the point of view of its eponymous protagonist, Noah is the story of a senior at high school who juggles his time (or at least, his time online) between university applications, video games with friends, Skype calls with his girlfriend and the occasional click on Youporn. What he does offline, we can only gather through the pictures on his profile.

It is precisely a Skype calls that sets events in motion. Suspecting that she might want to break up with him, Noah hacks into his girlfriend's Facebook account, looking for traces of possible infidelity. Identifying a potential rival in one of Amy's swimming teammates, Noah switches her relationship status to 'single'. A Facebook ban and several months of loneliness later, he logs into ChatRoulette, where he meets a girl who hates social media, favoring actual socializing and human contact instead. 

By sharing Noah's point of view, we can see absolutely everything that is going on on his desktop, if not in his mind. This exclusive access places us both at the protagonist's level and at that of a potential hacker of his computer (and, given Noah's online activities, turning us into meta-hackers of sorts), which is without a doubt the film's strongest feature. However, since it hardly adds anything to the ongoing debate on the side effects of social media, the POV shot alone is not enough to fully deliver the punch. Having said that, Noah is, by all means, a scarily accurate insight into – excuse the inevitable Bowie reference- modern love.

Author: Chiara Puntil*

Title: Noah

Director: Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman

Year: 2013

Run time: 17'26''

Country: Canada

Contact details: walter@koalamotiom.com

 

*Every day Cineuropa Shorts, in collaboration with Nisimazine and Lago Film Fest (18-26 July), offers you film reviews and interviews made in Lago by the brilliant Nisimazine’s team of young journalists.