Agora is the newest movie by Alejandro Amenábar, starring Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella and Oscar Isaac.

Plot:
Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) is a teacher of astronomy and mathematics in Alexandria around 400 AD. She devotes her whole life to her studies and refuses her student Orestes (Oscar Isaac) and doesn’t even notice that her slave Davus (Max Minghella) is in love with her. But all three of them get caught up in the violent religious conflicts between Christians and Pagans in Alexandria.

Historically the movie was probably not very correct, but it tells a strong story, so it shall be forgiven. The cast was excellent and I loved the production design. The weakest part of the whole film was, surprisingly, Alejandro Amenábar’s direction.

[SPOILERS]

I don’t know much about the life of Hypatia, but deadra (who knows basically everything) told me beforehand that she was killed by being skinned alive. With oyster shells. I was very happy for the movie’s poetic licence here because they made her death a little more bearable. [Also very sad.]

The story itself is very strong. It’s basically a cautionary tale to not let violence get in the way of knowledge, to not let religion interfere with science. Pretty awesome stuff.

Rachel Weisz was strong as usual. This woman is amazing. But also Max Minghella and Oscar Isaac (especially him) could hold their own.

As I said before, suprisingly, Amenábar’s direction proved to be weak. Quite a few times he just zoomed out of earth and into outer space and left the audience a little flabbergasted. The first time round it was funny, when Orestes got all his courage together to play a song for Hypatia and the sound of the flute could be heard on the moon. But it got a little tired after that. And the time jump was really clumsy.

Altogether, it was a intelligent, well-played and thoughtful movie I can recommend. You just have to blend out a few things to fully enjoy it.