Review of Agora (2009) by Diego D — 05 May 2010

Religion is undoubtedly the most dangerous thing that exists, capable of blinding to the point that the worst genocides and wars are born as the film actually shows (and surely there is better documented and with more reason than Slumdog Millionaire).

The film should tell the events that accompany the life of a scholar, Hypatia, whose works has been lost in ages of hardships and struggles, and who has sacrificed for the opening of thought.

The narrative of the film, however, is just chronicles, recalling old films with weak thick (just think of the unbearable rhythmic).

While wanting to carry the subtext (a civilization is ending, and the closely related disorders in Alexandria are above all intellectual ... especially in this mess, they need, and are looking for a new worldview, which includes religion), Amenabar fails to create a microcosm, working only on the scale, and in this way loses credibility, because no character has a size.

Agora tells us nothing about who was the philosopher Hypatia, except giving us geometry and complex astronomy lessons: it is true, she was different from her disciples, because she has had integrity, but then?

Even love stories (represented by the suffering she caused with denials) are weak, making it the feeling that everything is fake, and without soul. Fanaticism is what really reigns there, and to watch the burning of the Library of Alexandria, one of the greatest achievements of humanity lost forever, was a searing pain; but you can not see beyond, until you imagine on your own, all that the movie lacks.

Eventually, this shot of the director of The Others and Mar Adentro, was pretentious, but felt too little, despite a careful and functional directing, and a decent editing.