Agora (2009)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Alejandro Amenábar

Writers:

Alejandro Amenábar (writer)
Mateo Gil (writer)

Release Date:

9 October 2009 (Spain)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | Romance

Tagline:

Alexandria, Egypt. 391 A.D. The World Changed Forever

Plot:

A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria. |

Plot Keywords:

Slave | Egypt | Hypatia | Woman Crying | Religious Intolerance

Cast

Rachel Weisz	...	Hypatia
Max Minghella	...	Davus
Oscar Isaac	...	Orestes
Ashraf Barhom	...	Ammonius
Michael Lonsdale	...	Theon
Rupert Evans	...	Synesius
Richard Durden	...	Olympius
Sami Samir	...	Cyril
Manuel Cauchi	...	Theophilus
Homayoun Ershadi	...	Aspasius
Oshri Cohen	...	Medorus
Harry Borg	...	Prefect Evagrius
Charles Thake	...	Hesiquius
Yousef 'Joe' Sweid	...	Peter
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Andre Agius	...	Boy
Paul Barnes	...	Dignitary 2
Christopher Dingli	...	Student 2
Clint Dyer	...	Hierax
Wesley Ellul	...	Guard #1
Angele Galea	...	Charition
Jordan Kiziuk	...	Hypatia's Disciple
Ray Mangion	...	Crier via Canopica
Samuel Montague	...	Theatre Crier
Alan Paris	...	Bodyguard no. 1
Christopher Raikes	...	Hellenistic Man
Amber Rose Revah	...	Sidonia
Charles Sammut	...	Philosopher 1
Nikovich Sammut	...	Romman officer 1
Juan Serrano	...	Dead jew (extra actor)

Also Known As:

Mists of Time (International: English title) (working title)

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

Spain | Malta

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Filming Locations:

Delimara, Malta

Company:

Mod Producciones

Trivia:

When the film was in its early pre-production stages, Nicole Kidman was reportedly approached to star as Hypatia but turned down the film for fear of controversy over the film's plot (Kidman had starred in another film that had religious controversy, The Golden Compass (2007), and was afraid of having to deal with the same controversy over again).

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the time of the movie's setting, the Priest wouldn't be facing the congregation but the Altar.

Atheists of all the world unite!

I watched Agora at its Malta premiere. And I liked it.

I have to declare an interest: two actually. One is that however dispassionate one tries to be about a film that one is connected with even in the remotest of ways, there's still an underlying wish that people like it. The other is that I'm a preaching, pious, practicing atheist and this film tells the story of an atheist saint who lives for her convictions: the religion of questioning anything, and the faith that there are answers to every question and the answers are real and true even we are as yet unable to discover them.

Hypatia is a teacher and philosopher who lives in Alexandria at a time when a major transformation is happening to a Roman Empire well past its prime. Christianity, previously suppressed because of its obsessive destructive monolithic monopoly of any alternative interpretation of truth and for its morbid fascination and dark affinity with suffering and death, is becoming a mainstream faith. But in its battle for the hearts and minds of the Alexandrians, Christianity cannot persuade and reason. Who can outwit, out-speak, out- reason and exceed the persuasive skills of the heathen protectors and renewers of the Platonic and academic tradition? Where persuasion does not work, Christians resort to superstition, threats, witch-hunts, violence and murder. It may not be Christian behaviour, but it works; and as Hypatia herself acknowledges, the Christians have won and reason, knowledge and the pursuit of truth have lost.

At the very opening of the film, and at different pauses for reflection, the director zooms away from the scene and looks at it from high up above. Hitchcock looked down from the height of the clouds, there where the screams and the fires in the village attacked by birds are too far to hear and see. Cameron looked down from the star lit night sky, at the sinking Titanic that from that distance looked like a barely floating piece of flotsam, not the calamity experienced from those inside the ship. Gibson looked down from the point of view of God when he shed a tear that shook the Golgotha.

Amenabar takes a bird's eye view, or a God's eye view if you like, of his own time. These are Google Earth shots that rapidly zoom away and sea earth as a geographical reality bereft of all the details of the cities and people that pollute its surface. From so high up above Africa of 500 AD looks exactly like today's Africa. And so of the Mediterranean and of the Nile Delta.

I don't think this is merely a stylistic nod to the Google Earth age. I think it can also be a visual statement that the secterian violence of Alexandria of 15 centuries ago is identical to Gujarrat, Kabul, Belfast, Sarajevo, Darfur and Rwanda of our time. That from high up above the period costumes, the faded Egyptian statues and the defunct languages and religions cannot be seen. What can be seen is a planet inhabited by humans who find dignity and humanity in their right to hold strong views but who compensate for their inability to persuade others by using coercion and violence.

True, religion poisons everything. True the morality police of the newly Christian Alexandria look remarkably like an earlier day Taliban or latter day Pharisees whom Jesus challenged to be the ones to throw the first stone. The pogroms of the newly Christian Alexandria and the Christ-killing libel of the time is replicated by anti-Semites to this day. Also true that for Christians anywhere the film is a reminder that the worst thing about their convictions is the unjustified belief that their faith is superior to darker faiths that are plagued by integralism, intolerance, militancy and violence.

But this is not a film of a Republican Spaniard who looks for another metaphor for the Spanish Civil War. This is the story of violence whether inspired or justified by religion or not. This could be about sports, about politics, about anything that people feel would justify them in acting in a way that would prevent others from living out their lives.

Was it a good film? Yes, I thought so. If I was to be picky, I'd say that I'm still not convinced about the idea of using inter-titles mid-way through the film to bring the audience up to speed with the change in context before the second Act starts. I'm a bit old fashioned that way and I would have preferred to have all that woven into the dialogue and the images of the film. I felt the film lost momentum at that point, though I am indeed being picky because the rhythm is very quickly regained.

I liked the film because, though a period film, the hero is a woman who never brandishes a knife and who never thrills us with her fighting skills. In that way the story remains honest with itself. As she is accused of witch-craft, Hypatia cracks the Copernican code, unarmed and disarming.

And I liked the film because I'm biased. Because it tells Christians a story they can choose to ignore like the seeds whom the farmer cast carelessly on rock and were quickly eaten by birds. You cannot question what you believe. I must.