Agora

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Celtic R The story of Hypatia is one of the great stories from the ancient world. Like some of the other stories about ancient religion and philosophy, the tale has been interpreted, and reinterpreted, and twisted around, and "improved" by factions that have something to sell. This movie has its faults. Historians have made their complaints. Still, the movie introduces one of the great women in intellectual history and it raises important questions about coexistence, government, education, and other topics that need attention in the 21st century. Some thinking will be required. If you're searching for easy answers and entertainment, this is not a movie that you'll enjoy. If you're trying to understand how and why today's bigotry started, it's a film that will be helpful. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/02/23 Full Review Andy L Such a thought provoking and beautiful film. Even though there are some rather large inaccuracies, it captivates the upheaval and thrill of the time. I love the aerial shots and how they set the tone for you to simply observe a the world that we are simultaneously from and not from (our planet and the world we inherited and inhabit but in a different time). It's interesting how the arena is the same. A very thought provoking film. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/31/23 Full Review Nicolas S Splendide. A movie who need to be study in colege and school. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 06/07/23 Full Review alex k Brilliant & very cerebral. Don't watch it if you're a fundamentalist religious type Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review david l I am a huge fan of Alejandro Amenabar, so imagine my crushing disappointment after watching Agora, a total misfire in every sense of that word. Here is a movie that was supposed to be about the importance of science, yet all of those sequences focusing on scientific theories and ideas were either boring or pretentious. As for its take on religion, it's horribly biased and laughably caricaturist as the Christians here are depicted in the most cartoony way possible. Couple that with the fact that nothing that we get in this movie ever happened in real life and you've got one of the most historically inaccurate and shamelessly propagandist historical films ever created. Rachel Weisz is terrific, but even the story of Hypatia was rushed, badly written and emotionally ineffective. The production design is tremendous, but the costumes are anachronistic and the editing is atrocious. Watching this chaotic dud, I could not believe that Amenabar directed it, and that's still hard to take. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A superb movie about religious intolerance -- Finally, a movie has been made that shows the loss of freedom of inquiry and of religious belief that took place in the late 4th Century early 5th Century C.E. (Common Era) as Christian fundamentalists took political power. We see how these fanatics ruthlessly attacked pagans, Jews, and secular philosophers who didn't follow the "true religion." The movie focuses well on the historical events that occurred in Alexandria, Egypt, at that time with brief mentions of what's going on in the rest of the Roman world, such as the edicts from the emperor. Rachel Weisz is brilliant as Hypatia. The movie is also a great reminder of what happens when religious fundamentalists have their way. No freedom of religious belief or inquiry existed for hundreds of years in Europe while Christian clerics were in control. But we need only look at events today in Saudi Arabia and anywhere else in the Islamic world where Sharia law has been imposed to see the barbarism that unfolds. In Afghanistan, women are beaten or even executed for being outside alone or for getting an education. When the Taliban ruled the country in the 1990s, they also suppressed the teaching of math and science, and tried to wipe out the country's history through the destruction of records, films, and monuments. In Saudi Arabia, rape victims are whipped. I'm sure there are some Christians who are uncomfortable with this movie's reminder about Christianity's early history. Fundamentalist leaders like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham denounce the spread of Islam through conquest in the 7th and 8th Centuries. Yet they turn a blind eye to the tyranny and loss of freedom that occurred when Christians gained political power in the late Roman era. Agora is quite a change from the old movies from the 1950s that had a religious overtone. Several of them, such as The Robe, Quo Vadis, and Samson and Delilah, depicted all pagans or anybody who isn't a Jew or Christian as morally depraved and decadent. Christians were always portrayed as good and pure. The focus was only on biblical-related stories that ignored the world outside the Bible. As far as they were concerned, nothing good came from pagan Egypt, Greece or Rome. Fortunately, movies of that nature aren't being made much anymore or are bombs at the box office. It's a shame that Agora did not get much advertisement in the United States. In the Washington, DC area, it was shown at only two theaters. I only found out about it from an email list I'm on. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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