Agora
I posted the trailer of Agora when I heard about it last year, wondering whether the movie itself would be excellent or dire, but because of an extremely limited American release at a time when I was in New Zealand anyway, I missed it in theatres. This evening a couple of professors showed it to their respective ancient history classes, and I tagged along to see it.
Well, it was well worth watching.
Agora is a powerful movie about the evils of fanaticism. As with all historical dramas, it takes some liberties with the story (the film's wikipedia page addresses a few of the more relevant historical questions), however, in Agora, most of the historical twisting is done to tie the selected main actors to the historical events.
The main inaccuracy, and one which reflects on the approach of the filmmakers is the treatment of Synesius, the bishop of Cyrene in the film (but more accurately, Synesius of Cyrene, bishop of Ptolemais), who seems to have died before Hypatia, with whom he corresponded.
The negative reviews which make up Rotten Tomatoes's 55% rating mostly concern a lack of drama. I find history dramatic enough even before it gets sexed up for the silver screen, so I'm not surprised that I didn't notice. My own proclivities aside, it's certainly no Alexander.
And of course, because it's based on history and not an American movie, it doesn't have a happy ending.
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Click to viewWell, it was well worth watching.
Agora is a powerful movie about the evils of fanaticism. As with all historical dramas, it takes some liberties with the story (the film's wikipedia page addresses a few of the more relevant historical questions), however, in Agora, most of the historical twisting is done to tie the selected main actors to the historical events.
The main inaccuracy, and one which reflects on the approach of the filmmakers is the treatment of Synesius, the bishop of Cyrene in the film (but more accurately, Synesius of Cyrene, bishop of Ptolemais), who seems to have died before Hypatia, with whom he corresponded.
The negative reviews which make up Rotten Tomatoes's 55% rating mostly concern a lack of drama. I find history dramatic enough even before it gets sexed up for the silver screen, so I'm not surprised that I didn't notice. My own proclivities aside, it's certainly no Alexander.
And of course, because it's based on history and not an American movie, it doesn't have a happy ending.
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