Educational Media Reviews Online

Combining a contemporary, beautifully shot surf film with Jesus is the point of Noah’s Arc. The first half of the documentary is a guided tour, by surfer Noah Snyder, of small town surf culture on North and South Carolina’s Outer Banks. While the waves are relatively small on the Atlantic side, the Outer Banks offers plenty of waves and the added swell of hurricane season. The second half of the documentary is all about Noah Snyder and his friends “accepting Jesus into [their] heart.”

Almost immediately after Noah’s acceptance of Jesus as his lord and savior, 6 other Outer Banks surfers, through example, found Jesus and began attending church together, organizing bible studies and showing their fellow surfers how much of a difference Jesus made to their lives. While they still surf, and in some cases compete, the majority of the second half of the film is personal testimony about a particular surfer’s religious conversion and current state of happiness.

The high production values and somewhat misleading cover do not prepare you for the half-way mark which, as retold by Noah Snyder, comes when he is surfing in the chilly Atlantic ocean and he is tempted to let hypothermia overcome him. The decision to leave the water coincides with his conversion experience.

The DVD cover suggests that surf mega-stars like CJ and Damien Hobgood are included among the converted, but interviews with the more well know names in surfing are often uncomfortable conversations about the positive changes they see in Noah and how glad they are that Noah has become so stoked on Jesus. Noah’s fellow Outer Banks surfers who followed his example are able to speak with more conviction about his and their own conversion experiences and the positive life changes they have made as a result.

Overall, Noah’s Arc is a film about a very narrow slice of surf culture. It isn’t clear if the intent is to convert young, wayward surfers by showing “saved” surf heroes or converting the already religious young people to surfing through great surf footage. The connection between the two is tenuous; there is surfing, and there is Jesus and the film makes no claims that they have a connection apart from both residing happily in a handful of Outer Banks surfers. Because their conversion stories are ecstatically personal—as is their relationship with Jesus—the surfing angle suddenly seems beside the point. And because their surfing is a solo activity, the religious angle seems tacked on. The two halves of Noah’s Arc are just that—halves that are merely contiguous. Interestingly, the surfers who are religious use exactly these terms to describe their lives before and after accepting Jesus.

I do not recommend this film for public or private non-religious high school and college collections, mainly because of its “bait and switch” nature. But for public library collections and religious schools it might be a good choice. It has value – by halves. The absolutely ideal setting for this film would be church group movie night for teenage boys. (Churches should be sure to secure the public performance rights for this film before showing it to a group.)