Review of Agora (2009) by Aline — 15 May 2010

A movie that stimulates your brain to think about important matters as tolerance, and makes you realize that nothing has changed in the last 2000 years. â??Agoràâ?? is a brilliant movie that takes you in, and doesnâ??t leave you after the screening is over, itâ??s one of those projects that may change the way you watch at the world. I see the movie as divided in two acts: the first one about culture, and how this culture was somehow destroyed (taking of Alexandria Library was a tremendous scene, perfect in each shot), and a second one regarding religion matters and tolerance, but not really against Christianity as somebody said.

Hypatia of Alexandria is the main character â?? a great, interesting, beautiful character beautifully interpreted by actress Rachel Weisz who once again put her soul in the role. Iâ??ve learned something new by watching the movie, I didnâ??t really knew she existed, but she now has my respect because she was a very wise woman of our past, and a splendid astronomic and scientist â?? a character that should not be forgotten by textbooks, it wasnâ??t a man (Keplero) to find out that Heart is not at the center of our galaxy â?? that was a woman, and her name was Hypatia.

Then, Iâ??m not really able to find the right word to describe Alejandro Amenábarâ??s work. The script is awesome, most scenes just blow me away, I felt sorry for everything that happened in here, and I started to reflect about past matters, I started to ask myself who are the good ones and the bad ones, and why do we refer as some religions as â??goodâ?? religions â?? seems like all religion lack a certain tolerance. â??Agoràâ?? is not a controverse movie about Christianity; if you look more closely youâ??ll notice that the movie criticizes also Jews, and other religions that were not able to accept that people believed in other Gods, or just in science. Terrible things happened in the past, and we should not forget about themâ?¦.

Soundtrack by Dario Marianelli is also great, perfect for each scene. So classic and yet so powerful, it was able to transport me straight to the Alexandria of many centuries ago.

I absolutely recommend this movie to you all. Itâ??s just outstanding: a masterpiece by director Alejandro Amenábar, with a powerful main character that had to question what she believed to.

â??If I could just unravel this just a little bit more, and just get a little closer to the answer, then... Then I would go to my grave a happy woman.â??