Rating: ***
The historical drama Agora opens with a star field, as the camera pans down to get an orbital view of the African continent from space. And for a minute there I thought I had put in the wrong DVD. But matters of planets in space are very much on the mind of the filmmakers as they tell this historical dramatization of the fall of the Library at Alexandria and the rise of Christianity. Yes, science and religion clash in their age old struggle, which in the time of Agora was still a youthful struggle.
Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a philosopher, scientist and teacher that lives in fifth century Alexandria. Against the back drop of the waning years of the Roman Empire and the increased sectarian violence between Christians, Jews and Pagans, Hypatia teaches the future leaders of Alexandria about the Earth and the heavens. Weisz is really quite perfectly cast in her role. With her authority and grace you can understand how this woman would hold such an important place in Alexandrian society in a time when being an independent, authoritative woman was the exception rather than the rule.
But it doesn’t take long to see why Agora was the subject of a little controversy when it was released in theatres earlier this year. A Spanish Catholic group called Observatorio Antidifamación Religiosa (or Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, for you English-speakers) said that the film promotes “hatred of Christians and reinforcing false clichés about the Catholic Church,” and that’s actually pretty close to being true. The Christian mob is mostly raving and dogmatic, while the defenders of the Pagan faith are elite and decedent. You don’t need a degree in history to know how this is going to turn out.
Not to get overly political in a DVD review, but I did appreciate the loaded allegory. And it’s not one way either as it’s the Pagans responding with violence to Christian defacing of Pagan relics that leads to the Christian siege on the library and its eventual destruction. Still, looking at the performances by Sami Samir as the local Bishop Cyril and Ashraf Barhom as street preacher Ammonius it’s hard not to see the vicious streak of modern TV evangelicals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. If you hate those guys, you’ll love Agora, at least during the parts where Cyril and Ammonius are getting all fundamental.
Story-wise, there is a lot of political intrigue in terms of who Christianity overcame centuries of oppression and became the one’s doing the oppressing. The debate is magnified in Alexandria prefect Orestes (Oscar Isaac) who was one of the ones battling the Christians outside the Library but converted when he felt which way the wind was blowing. Through the years, he continues to depend on Hypatia for insight and counsel, even though she rejected his romantic overtures. Isaac wears Orestes struggle to find harmony well, as well as his character’s own struggle between idealism and pragmatism.
When the focus of the film is on the political and religious instability of Alexandria during this period, I found the film very engaging. But when we cut away from that to follow Hypatia’s dissection of heavenly bodies, or worse still, the struggles of her former slave Davus (Max Minghella) and his bizarrely confusing love/hate relationship with both his former mistress and his Christian faith, things get stalled. Minghella’s idea of angst seems to be to scrunch up his face as if both perplexed and irritated by every situation.
Although the various stoylines come out in the end with mixed results, there is something in Agora that made it compelling enough to see all the way through. Visually though, the film is amazing to behold. The sets and the additional visual effects work are wonderful, and the cinematography by Xavi Giménez almost makes you feel the scorching sunlight of the desert through your TV set. The photography was lush and vile and it made you feel like the crew had gone 1,500 years back in time to film the movie. Modern political allegories make Agora compelling, but the film was also very pretty to look at. Some better character development would have taken Agora to the next level, but the film, as it is, works well enough.
