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Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This average good movie holds something important. Now, why average good? Compare it to the 400 Blows, Apu Trilogy, Tokyo story and such others, there is a margin for best upto AgoraBut wondering what makes it special, I was displayed with two important aspects. The life of a Scientific Brain and the religious turmoil. If one thinks over it, the director made an absolute blend of Hypatia and people. Whereas one feels astound on her realization of the case of a perfect figure, the balanced figure circle itself being a special case of ellipse which can be realised through a cone as a conic section, at the same time we are visualised over how all kind of religious folks corrupt and misuse the simple and guiding principles. It doesn't take a moment or the beautiful idea to be moulded in the cruel and hampering thought just for personal ego satisfaction. One can justify anything everything and there will always be statements that will shut our mouth of logic for the logicality of those statements.Intentionally or unintentionally, the blend got great and significant.

Recounting the events that led to the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria, this epic Spanish drama tells of the Christian-Pagan tensions in 4th century Roman Egypt, specifically focusing in on the slave of female philosopher & scholar Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), and how he witnesses her struggles to preserve the ancient knowledge against the rising Christian extremism.Ambitious but ultimately out of steam before the end, 'Agora' is rather lavishly mounted, but its hefty script doesn't quite pack the punch it ought to. It makes the classic mistake of a lot of historical/biographical films; it tries to cover so much ground and squeeze in as many historical events and personages as possible, and so whose story this is, and what even the main themes are, becomes really muddled. You have Hypatia's own experiments concerning astronomy, her own battles for preservation, the social tensions in Egypt, the religious tensions, Hypatia's slave and his quest for knowledge, the battle over the Library, the declining power of Rome, the rise of Christianity, it's just too much to cover in a little over two hours. Cutting out a lot of the side characters, most of whom are one note 'PRAISE DAH LOWD' archetypes, and centre the story more around Hypatia and her slave's quest, and the film would've been the better for it.A pity it's so scattershot and rambly, as there are quite a few good things, and it is a very superb production for European cinema. The sets and locations that recreate Roman Egypt look amazing and you really see and feel their size and just how populated they are, as well as the historical crossroads Alexandria is at. The cast is well rounded, with Weisz in top form as both a charismatic yet passionate and fiery Hypatia, joined by the likes of Oscar Issac, Max Minghella, Sami Samir, Michael Lonsdale and Rupert Evans, who all do fine jobs, even if their material is again, more limited. We even have a score from Italy's new cinematic go-to Dario Marrinelli, which takes a strongly religious/choral cue and is often sombre, reflecting the state of affairs in the story. Think of the more downbeat, intimate tracks of say 'Gladiator', as an entire film score.But it's a bloated script that lets all of this down. I cannot deny I respect director/co-writer Alejandro Amenabar for really pushing larger scale Euro film making, but he just forget to really have a powerful tale to bring it all together. Well mounted, but never truly enthralling. Shame really.

Where does one begin to take to task this fictional diatribe against Christians and the early Imperial Church. Alexandria was known to be a city that often was embroiled in heated riots that cost lives even before the Common Era and the advent of the Church. The film portrays the Christian church of the period to be violently intolerant and zealously misogynistic in their religious zeal and ensconced in superstition. The events in the film never happened. In 48 BCE, it was Julius Caesar (a pagan) who invaded Egypt and destroyed part of the Alexandrian library in his war against Pompey. Strabo, a pagan historian, who died around 23 CE, spoke of the main library as a thing of the past. What was left of this main library was probably destroyed in Aurelius' wars of Imperial unification when the Great Museum to which the main library was adjunct in 272 CE. By 391 CE, the library was not in existence. Yet, many post 18th century scholars and historians state that Christians destroyed the temple under the direction of Bishop Theophilus' in 391 CE confusing clashes between pagans and Christians as part and parcel of the main library's destruction. This is a clear untruth and what is sad it is a deliberate one at that.However, in 391 CE, the Serapeum was destroyed. Christians were captured and murdered in the temple of this secondary library by pagans. Since the murdered Christians were to be considered martyrs there was a call for restraint so as not to taint their sacrifice so there was no riot or clash. The Emperor Theodosius ordered the complex to be demolished while letting the murderers go free. The Christians were allowed under Roman governmental oversight to participate in the dismantling of the temple but no other structures were harmed. Additional damage to the building itself probably took place in 7th century by Muslim invaders. However, there was no burning of the library's collection by Christians. Both a goodly number of Christian and pagan accounts of that day exist and there is not one mention of such a burning of the library's collection. Even Eunapius of Sardi who had no great love for Christianity makes no such claim and there are even hints that by this time the secondary library had no collection. Pagan historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes the Serapeum as being no longer a library just a few years before its destruction. There is not one written source before the 18th century that has claimed that Christians were responsible for either the collection's destruction for either the main or secondary library nor is there any other evidence proving such. The idea that Christians and the Church were responsible for destroying the Library(ies) of Alexandria in 391 CE is a fiction made up by English historian Edward Gibbon in the 18th century.As to the murder of the brilliant Platonic philosopher, trained scientist, and author of mathematical commentaries, Hypatia. While a woman of note, there is no record of her making any important contributions to her fields of expertise. Just as the recent Cosmos series totally mislead its viewership concerning Giardano Bruno, this movie (and so many others) have created a fictional heroine to dovetail with the fictional history of banal, anti-intellectual Christians on a murderous rampage against pagans especially one pagan woman. Hypatia, who was sixty at the time, was indeed murdered and dismembered, by a Christian fraternity founded to help the poor. She was killed not because she was a woman (female intellectuals were not uncommon in Eastern Empire in either pagan or Christian circles) or a philosopher/scientist (this class of people in Alexandria included both pagans, Jews, and Christians and there was no Christian prejudice against science or philosophy). Hypatia was not perceived as an enemy of the Christian faith and counted many of the educated Christians of Alexandria as her friends, many of whom were students. The Christian historian Socrates, who admired her, states that she was killed because she embroiled herself in a political war between the Imperial prefect and the city's patriarch and it was the denizens of the city's slums that took matters into their own hands without any Church approval (even though the movie lays the blame at the feet of St. Cyril of Alexandria) and was more about her social class and standing and belonging to the wrong side of a political war where this murderous mob was concerned. While the higher, educated classes participated in each other's lives no matter their religious and philosophical differences, the lower classes before and after Christianity's advent were tribal and violent. These Christian lower-class denizens could be rightly compared to Europe's soccer hooligans and the cross was simply one more banner to wave. Such is the truth while the movie and its attempt to paint the Christian Church as a violent, banal, intolerant, and misogynistic community is anti-Christian propaganda and a deliberate lie.

This is a brilliant movie and I can barely fault it (my only complaint is that it implies that Hypatia was an Atheist, when as a Neoplatonist she was almost certainly a polytheist). I think the reason it has not been more successful is because it is about a time and place most people know very little about. I recommend this movie to all intelligent adults but, unless you have a reasonable background in classics and/or ancient history, I suggest you look up a bit about the period, and about Hypatia, first. The movie is not anti-Christian - a careful assessment of the story shows this (via a number of sympathetically portrayed Christians). Unfortunately so few Christians are actually aware of their early history that many of them will freak out when they realise how violent their history has been (at times) and declare the movie anti-Christian propaganda.