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Agora (2009)

Director: Alejandro Amenábar

Time Out rating

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12 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Alejandro Amenábar, the Spanish director of ‘The Others’ and ‘The Sea Inside’, puts on his sword and sandals – and thinking cap – for this sweeping, ancient-historical drama of ideas. Current debates over religious extremism and scientific rationalism hover subtly over this fictionalisation of events surrounding the sacking of the library at Alexandria in 391 in the face of rising tension between pagans, Christians and Jews. As well as recreating the city with impressive realism and scale, Amenábar develops a compelling sense of volatility and impending violence. At the centre of it all is scientist and teacher Hypatia (a relaxed Rachel Weisz), whose musings on the place of the Earth in the universe run counter to religious dogma.

Other characters, such as Hypatia’s former slave Davus (Max Minghella) and her pupil-turned-Roman prefect Orestes (Oscar Isaac) are only interesting as representatives of change – and not as romantic foils. The build-up of emnity is more absorbing than its explosion and the story wanders later on, but the film’s portrayal of how religious fervour can interrupt the progress of secular knowledge is acute and welcome.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2070: April 22-28, 2010

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User reviews of this film

RachaelV said...

Posted on Nov 21 2010 11:25 Couldn't agree more with Gort. Extremely disappointing. Facile dialogue, barely credible characterisation and drama, full of historical inaccuracies, totally lacking in subtlety or interest. Dreadful ... and *very* disappointing from the director of the wonderful The Sea Inside.

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SM said...

Posted on Nov 10 2010 03:22 A thoughtful, difficult and provacative film that will challenge any blind faith in religion and the ultimate search for power over truth / exploration / humanity. A troubling and beautifully cast and filmed exposition. Thank you !

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Dave S said...

Posted on Jun 25 2010 20:59 Some of these reviews, and the blatant agenda behind them, make me want to go and join the Belgian police.

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Adam Powell said...

Posted on May 14 2010 00:50 What a dumb film was that! Full of historical lies and manipulative storylines with weak direction.

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Richard said...

Posted on May 04 2010 16:04 Terrible film. Poor Rachel Weisz had no one to act with and a dire, clunking script. Often pretentious about religion and science yet strangely with nothing original to say. A lot of people left before the end and I wish I had - it did not improve. While I am up for a stoning as much as the next man, I lost count how many times they fell back on pebble chucking for action. No sense of drama. There was nothing convincing about this film. Don't see it. They don't deserve your money.

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Mark said...

Posted on May 03 2010 14:22 After the rave reviews Agora was a great disappointment. It was poorly directly, clunky almost, and I really didn't think the modern view or Earth from space worked in a historical film. With the strong passions aroused by internecine violence, you would expect that the script would rise to challenge and articulate the ideas and motivations of the characters. There were several set piece moments where we could get a speech that did so. But no, the lines were feeble. When Hypatia is asked what does she believe, she simply replies, "I believe in philosophy." What? Is that all? Should that not be "reason" at least? No wonder it was laughed down.
This film could have been so much more. The sets were superb and the actors put in good performances, making the most of the script. But the story was disjointed and it fell short of its ambitions.

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Nigel Toft said...

Posted on May 03 2010 01:04 this is a very,very good film ..thought provoking and very moving... the attitudes displayed by the Christian Bishop and his thugish followers are so refelective of those displayed by the many religious fanatics around today..

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Brian Petts Wood said...

Posted on May 02 2010 21:12 Interesting topic but simlified and cardboard treatment of both historical/political turmoil as well as personal conflicts meant this film lost a great opportunity. It was not clear as to whether it wanted to focus on characters or external factors which made it feel very uneven and incomplete in the editing.Rachel Weisz sounded and looked great and more chance to exploit her strength would have helped.

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LYRIS said...

Posted on May 02 2010 10:22 Beautifully shot, directed and cast. Historically somewhat inaccurate and full of cringing drivel. Yet, entertaining (the story in mind, not sure this is a good sign)

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Joe Gill said...

Posted on Apr 29 2010 16:22 I must have seen a different film to others because as far as I am concerned this was the most impressive and compelling swords and sandals epic since Spartacus. I have been waiting for Hollywood or anyone else to write a film that does the period justice. Agora is far better than the daft antics of Gladiator and all the other overblown Hollywood efforts of recent years. I do not know whether the Christians burned the books or not. However there was something chillingly believable about Bishop Cyril and his fanatical followers. None of the characters were black and white, all had flaws including Hypatia. This was grown up drama shot with astonishing beauty and vision.

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Gordon said...

Posted on Apr 27 2010 10:30 I didn't know women were so well educated in those days, in fact I didn't know they were educated at all, never mind becoming teachers and scientists. This film reminded me of the old Roy Rogers westerns where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats. To the web site to find out more about Hypatia.

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Gort said...

Posted on Apr 21 2010 07:28 I watched this movie and I really disliked it. The good side of the movie is that re-creation of that ancient city is very impressive. Also it is interesting to see Christians as bad guys in historical movie in opposition to those biblical movies.
Other side of the movie is it's weak drama which Amenábar replaces with talks about popular science. He makes Hypatia so smart that if the movie was little bit longer she would discover Warp drive. The other thing is that the movie is not historical but a crusade against Christians. I mean you can just look at Wikipedia and see that Christians did not destroy books of Ancient Library of Alexandria but it was destroyed in 48 BC by Caesar. Christians destroyed the pagan temple in 391 AD but at that time there were no books there anymore.
Christians did not hate science and did not believe the world is flat as film says because nobody believed the world is flat since at least 4th century BC. That was actually invention of 19th century. Not to mention things like Jesuits had built the first reflecting telescopes, microscopes, barometers, were first to calculate the constant of gravity, the first to measure the height of the mountains on the moon, the first to develop an accurate method of calculating a planet's orbit, the first to devise and publish a coherent description of atomic theory.

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