Film Agora
Pamula Harrison
Agora (Spanish: gora) is a 2009 English-language Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenbar and written by Amenbar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in late 4th-century Roman Egypt, who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system and the heliocentric model that challenges it. Surrounded by religious turmoil and social unrest, Hypatia struggles to save the knowledge of classical antiquity from destruction. Max Minghella co-stars as Davus, Hypatia's father's slave, and Oscar Isaac as Hypatia's student, and later prefect of Alexandria, Orestes.
The story uses historical fiction to highlight the relationship between religion and science at the time amidst the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism and the Christianization of Egypt, Lebanon and the Middle East. The title of the film takes its name from the agora, a public gathering place in ancient Greece, similar to the Roman forum. The film was produced by Fernando Bovaira and shot on the island of Malta from March to June 2008. Justin Pollard, co-author of The Rise and Fall of Alexandria (2007), was the historical adviser for the film.
Agora was screened out of competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in May, and opened in Spain on 9 October 2009 becoming the highest-grossing film of the year for that country. Although the film had difficulty finding distribution, it was released country by country throughout late 2009 and early 2010. The film received a 53% overall approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and seven Goya Awards in Spain, including Best Original Screenplay. It was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
In 391 AD, Alexandria is part of the Roman Empire, and Greek philosopher Hypatia is a teacher at the Platonic school, where future leaders are educated. Hypatia is the daughter of Theon, the director of the Musaeum of Alexandria. Hypatia, her father's slave, Davus, and two of her pupils, Orestes and Synesius, are immersed in the changing political and social landscape. She rejects Orestes's love as she prefers to devote herself to science. Davus assists Hypatia in her classes and is interested in science. He is also secretly in love with her.
Meanwhile, social unrest begins challenging the Roman rule of the city as Pagans and Christians come into conflict. When the Christians start verbally insulting the statues of the pagan gods, the pagans, including Orestes and Theon, ambush the Christians. However, in the ensuing battle, the pagans unexpectedly find themselves outnumbered by a large Christian mob. Theon is gravely injured, and Hypatia and the pagans take refuge in the Library of the Serapeum. The Christian siege of the library ends when an envoy of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I declares that the pagans are pardoned, but the Christians shall be allowed to take possession of the library. Hypatia and the pagans flee while trying to save the most important scrolls before the Christians overtake the library and destroy its contents. Davus chooses to join the Christian forces. He later returns with a gladius and sexually assaults Hypatia, but he begins to sob and offers his sword to her. However, she removes his slave collar and tells him that he is free.
Several years later, Orestes, now converted to Christianity, is prefect of Alexandria. Hypatia continues to investigate the motions of the Sun, the Moon, the five known "wanderers" (planets), and the stars. Some Christians ridicule the thinking that the Earth is a sphere by arguing that people far from the top would fall off the Earth. When they ask Davus what his opinion is, he avoids conflict by saying that only God knows these things.
Hypatia also investigates the heliocentric model of the solar system proposed by Aristarchus of Samos by having an object dropped from the mast of a moving ship, which demonstrates that a possible motion of the Earth would not affect the motion, relative to Earth, of a falling object on Earth. However, due to religious objections against heliocentrism, the Christians have now forbidden Hypatia to teach at the school. The Christians and the Jews come into violent conflict.
The leader of the Christians, Cyril, views Hypatia as having too much influence over Orestes and stages a public ceremony intended to force Orestes to subjugate her. Hypatia's former pupil, Synesius, now the Bishop of Cyrene, comes to her rescue as a religious authority counterweight but says he cannot help her unless she accepts Christianity; she refuses. Hypatia theorizes that the Earth orbits around the Sun in an elliptic orbit, not a circular orbit, with the Sun at one of the foci. Cyril convinces a mob of Christians that Hypatia is a witch, and they vow to kill her. Davus tries to run ahead to warn Hypatia, but she is captured. They strip Hypatia and are about to skin her alive until Davus persuades the mob otherwise, and they decide to stone her instead. When the mob goes outside to collect stones, Davus suffocates her to spare her the pain of being stoned and tells the mob that she fainted. Davus leaves as they begin to stone her.
After Amenbar completed The Sea Inside (2004), he took a break and traveled to the island of Malta, where he used his free time to explore the night sky. Seeing the Milky Way galaxy, Amenbar began to discuss astronomy with his friends, speculating about extraterrestrial life on other planets. He started to research astronomy and came across Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, by American astronomer Carl Sagan.[10] Amenbar also studied historical figures such as Ptolemy, Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo,[11] but found himself most interested in the story of Hypatia, a 4th-century Greek astronomer whose history, he felt, was still relevant in the 21st century: "We realized that this particular time in the world had a lot of connections with our contemporary reality. Then the project became really, really intriguing, because we realized that we could make a movie about the past while actually making a movie about the present."[12]
To prepare for the task of recreating the ancient city of Alexandria without relying on computer generated imagery, Amenbar reviewed older sword-and-sandal films such as The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), and Pharaoh (1966).[10] A year before the start of pre-production, designer Guy Hendrix Dyas spent three weeks with Amenbar in Madrid to do some preliminary work on the set designs and the recreation of the ancient city of Alexandria so that previous animations could be generated.
Production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas used a mixture of sets and locations instead of CGI at Amenbar's direction.[16] The construction of the set employed almost 400 people, and was the largest ever designed on the island. Actor Charles Thake (Hesiquius) suffered minor facial injuries on the set when he collided with extras running during a scene.[17] Filming ended in June.[9]
Agora premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival,[18] but the film was initially unable to find a domestic distributor due to its large budget and length.[19] The film also had trouble finding a distributor in both the United States and Italy, although it eventually found distributors in both countries.[20][21] The North America premiere was held at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2009.[22] Agora opened in Spain on 9 October 2009, breaking box office records for that country.[23] A limited release in the United States began on 28 May 2010, opening on two screens at the Paris Theatre and the Sunshine Cinema in New York City. The film opened on the West Coast of the United States on 4 June, playing only two screens: at The Landmark theatre in Los Angeles and at Regal's Westpark 8 in Irvine.[24]
British writer and film critic Peter Bradshaw, of The Guardian, praised Alejandro Amenbar and his film, describing Agora as "an ambitious, cerebral and complex movie.... Unlike most toga movies, it doesn't rely on CGI spectacle, but real drama and ideas." Bradshaw also applauded Rachel Weisz's role as Hypatia, calling it "an outstanding performance".[28]American screenwriter and critic Roger Ebert liked the film and gave it three stars out of four. He said: "I went to see Agora expecting an epic with swords, sandals and sex. I found swords and sandals, some unexpected opinions about sex, and a great deal more."[29]
The film holds a 53% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 93 reviews with an average score of 5.7/10. The website's critics' consensus reads, "Noble goals and a gripping performance from Rachel Weisz can't save Agora from its muddled script, uneven acting, and choppy editing."[30]
The Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory (Observatorio Antidifamacin Religiosa), a Spanish Catholic group, claimed that the film was responsible for "promoting hatred of Christians and reinforcing false clichs about the Catholic Church."[20] Michael Ordoa of the Los Angeles Times acknowledges that the film has been criticized for "perceived slights against Christians" but that "its lack of condemnation of specific dogma makes the film's target seem to be fundamentalism in general".[32]
Based on North American theatre tracking data from Rentrak Theatrical, indieWIRE reported that Agora "scored the highest per-theater-average of any film in the marketplace" during the Memorial Day holiday weekend from 28 May through 31 May, just after its U.S. limited release.[34] Despite this very high per-theater average, Agora was never widely released in the United States. According to Box Office Mojo, its widest release in the United States was just 17 theaters.[2]
The Cambridge History of Science has described the film as "spectacularly anachronistic", singling out the film's portrayal of Hypatia's fictional discovery the law of free fall and heliocentric orbits for criticism.[37]
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