Agora (2009)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hope of pursuing freedom while falling in love with his mistress, the famous philosophy and mathematics professor Hypatia of Alexandria. Agora benefits from an incredible perfomance from Rachel Weisz in the title role and Oscar Isaac in a supporting role long before X-Men and Star Wars. The acting from the rest of the cast is also great, the settings and the locations are outstanding and the overall direction superb. Overall a great movie in general even if i didn't like the ending and the fact that some "masks" were thrown down from religions and it's people. (8/10)

Somewhat ponderous at times, then explosive episodes, in which there is a lot of action.I like ancient Roman fiction; and this is a deviation from the norm, which is unexpected. Rachel Weisz seems to have put heart and soul into this, as if she really believes in the film's message. At times, it wanders into doco territory with learning at the core; the fictionalised aspect seems unrealistic, but apparently is backed up by historical sources. I would recommend to historical fiction fans, but the layperson might not find much of interest here.

May contain spoilersThe film Agora is a dramatization of a historical event, the destruction of the Serepaeum, the "library of Alexandria." Read that again: a dramatization of a historical event.It is no understatement to say that the loss of the knowledge in this greatest library and center of learning in the ancient world had catastrophic consequences. That this film has generated a lot of controversy is not surprising. Much of the negative press is based on some factual errors in the film. It seems to be conveniently forgotten that this is a drama, not a historical documentary. Agora actually deserves credit for how much it gets right. It convincingly recreates the era and the city of Alexandria during a turbulent time when several factions vied for power in the city, pagans, Jews and Christians. Although it may appear that the Christians come off looking the worst of the bunch, there are no angels here. One of the pagan leaders incites a massacre of Christians which backfires when they discover there are far more Christians in the city than them. The Jews lure some Christians into an ambush under the pretense of a fire which the well meaning Christians respond to with water buckets. And the Christians defile holy places of both rival groups. The film makes it quite clear however, that the Christian zealot Cyril (Samir) is driven more by desire for power than by faith and is merely using his followers for political ends. The movie is less an "attack" on Christianity than a warning about the dangers of fundamentalism of any stripe (even, dare I say, atheism), and of blindly following charismatic leaders.The central character is the famous pagan mathematician and astronomer Hypatia (Weisz). A story of a love triangle between her and the noble born Orestes (Isaac), a student of hers, and her personal slave Davus (Minghella) has been added more as a device to tell the larger story than as the main plot of the film. Hypatia has dedicated herself to philosophy, and has no care for the earthly pleasures of this world. The film suggests that she was virginal; that she was widely regarded as a symbol of virtue is chronicled in several contemporary written accounts. Although a love triangle, it is unrequited love on both sides. This is the vehicle used to bring us into this time and place, but the real story is the conflict between superstition and fear versus knowledge and open inquiry. In Hypatia's time, mathematics was essentially geometry, and we see this regularly as she uses geometrical methods to solve problems. The film expects at least some familiarity with the science and mathematics that is discussed in it, as we see Hypatia struggle to find a way to reconcile observations of the heavenly bodies (the "wanderers") with competing theories, the Ptolemaic system and a heliocentric system. Touches like these added to my enjoyment of the film. The CGI is excellent and rarely intrudes, and brings this ancient city to life. Weisz does a fine job portraying Hypatia, dedicated to her philosophy and pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. She certainly looks the part with her features, her dark curly hair, and proud bearing. The film's convincing recreation of the time and place is a large part of the appeal this film had for me, but the drama and action are also good and the visuals are often well above average. It is an enjoyable and thought provoking movie if one goes into it with an open mind. It almost begs you to ask yourself: how might history have been different if this knowledge had not been lost.

Firstly, I will say that the cinematography of this movie was beautiful. It's a shame that more viewers did not get to see it on the big screen in a cinema because here I'm sure it would have been even better. I first stumbled across this hidden gem on Netflix. I had never heard of the movie or heard of Hypatia but enjoy period movies so I decided to give this one watch. Its an unusual movie for the genre in that the lead is a woman and the casting of the primary male characters were all from virtual unknowns. Having said that, I thought all the acting was top notch across the board. The story is set in forth century Alexandria in a period of great religious change in the city. While at first glance the story seems to be about Hypatia, a philosopher and scientific pioneer, the story is rather seen through the eyes of her young slave Davus, who is played by Max Minghella. I had seen him play in the Social Network prior to watching this and here he was a revelation. His near mute performance is delivered primarily through looks, expressions and body language. Some of the scenes he shares with Rachel are stunning and very touching. The first act delivers strongly, but as the second act unfolds, the main characters seem to get lost in the the up swelling of religious upheaval. Part of the problem is the script here seems to relegate the interesting characters of Davus and Ammonius to spectators while Hypatia studies and the very one dimensional Cyril plots. Oscar Isaac as Orestes was very good in the second half. A powerful scene with his childhood friend Synesius is a strong one. The final section of the movie is completed by a beautifully passionate, violent but heart wrenching scene featuring the leads which is excellently performed. Aside from the scripting problems and some painful lines at times this movie could have been even better. I would class it as a very strong movie with excellent acting, beautiful visuals portraying a very interesting time in history. While many Christians will think of this as anti Christian, I think the overall impression I was left with was the moral of anti fundamentalism. Neither Christians, or Jews or Pagans were sold as good in this movie. All groups committed atrocities which parallel the tensions in our world. Overall worth a view on Netflix at least. 9/10.