Christian-Themed Film Agora - Essay Example

Review of a Christian-themed film “Agora” Sur s No need to be particularly sophisticated cinephile to love the genre of historical movies. Viewers of all ages are attracted by mysteries of the history and the most convenient way to get to know them is through entertainment experience. The earlier period covered in the film, the more interest in it, which increases the employment and monetary investments in the picture. "Agora" is a Spanish historical drama directed by Alejandro Amenábar and released in 2009. It is a film about a turning point in history when it was not clear who was "good" and who was "bad", who worth sympathizing and who should be defeated. Amenabar managed to represent the very essence of that terrible era, which we consider the golden age of patristic. His scenes and characters are relevant and at the same time they are clearly correlated with the era, and their historically obvious naivety for us is blown with romantic languishing. The action takes place In Alexandria, Egypt, in the end of IV-V century, when paganism was retreating under the pressure of young and uncompromising Christianity. IV century is the century of triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire. During this century Christians have moved from defense to attack, and from the oppressed religious minority they became a powerful government agency which was imposing its will to the rulers of destroying empire. In 391 in Alexandria religious clashes began, during which was destroyed the Library of Alexandria - one of the richest libraries in the world at that time. A former slave of Hypatia Davus who was secretly in love with her, becomes a Christian too and joined the rioters. Over time, the Christian church is becoming more powerful, and soon Bishop Cyril of Alexandria demanded Orestes and others to renounced Hypatia and forbid her to teach and do science. Hypatia was not able to deal with it and accept Christianity, so she was declared to be a witch, a prostitute and soon was killed. After examining a number of articles about the historical background of the film "Agora", I came to the conclusion that mainly it is the picture of art with many historical inconsistencies. Hypatia is the embodiment of the ideas of modernity, science, secularism and feminism. We can say that she is the progress of the fifth century. But, as is in case with any genius, or with the person, going one step ahead of his time, her history is full of obstacles and difficulties. And the problem here is not only that the filmmakers made Hypatia an incarnation of the virtues, but also (what is more important) because they were trying to oppose the viewer to the heroine, in every respect alien or "otherness" towards us. We have to see her as a woman of her own time. Hypatia, the first-ever female philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, represents the leaving antiquity. She was very intelligent and famous, the rulers listened her advises. Among her pupils there were many prominent figures, such as Orestes - the prefect of the city of Alexandria. She is a woman, who part after part loses everything in her life, thus personifying both Socrates and Jesus. Insanity was around her, the students turned to be traitors, people were destroying themselves, those who were taught by Hypatia juggle with religious truths on their own purposes, and only she, Hypatia, still was seeking the truth. The main controversial point of the film is the way how Christianity was represented, as usually Hollywood demonstrates peaceful triumph of Christianity, which won brutal paganism. Amenabar reminded that Christianity was not such peace-loving, as it now pretends to be, and did such atrocities that Rome turned pale with envy. After watching "Agora" I understood that Christianity is not a religion of slaves. Slaves cannot have religion because plebeian don’t seek upward. If the slaves get a sense of power and the sense of self-righteousness, they will tear the world apart. It is understandable why the Christians had to undergo a painful historical path: they needed to destroy gradually slavery in themselves. Late Antiquity was not patristic, but something quite different. With grudge, hatred in eyes and shouts "Crucify him!" Christianity fought against slavery, and in our modern world (where we have not less slavery than it was many centuries ago) nothing has changed. We still did not leave these barbaric times, says Amenábar. "Agora" says that human being is too young and just began to raise eyes upward. In the film there were no Christians, Jews or Greeks. There were peasants, who were ready to destroy each other, and politicians who manipulate with them. Whatever clothes they put on, nothing changes. Slaves and free citizens changed their lives, adjusting to a new way of existence. Among them nobody changed paganism on Christianity because of faith. Slave dreams to equalize with his mistress, whom he loves for many years. The Prefect considers the change of the faith as a natural attribute of time and civilization change. Few people really believe. And that is the horror of that period. Thus the film is not about the age of patristic but about us. We constantly live in cheap, vulgar myths that we impose on ourselves to make us easier to control. And the idea of the "golden age" has the same roots. There was no "golden age", the past the same as the present, is monstrous and frightening. This is a film about how the old system collapses, and on its ruins a completely new is being built. Society changes and begins to play according to rules that changed too. Someone quickly and easily adapt to the new rules of the game, someone slowly, while others cannot do this at all. These turning points in history always leave the heap of corpses and innocent victims. The picture did not pay off: with a budget of $ 70 million, it has collected only 39 million dollars, but in Spain it became successful, having collected $ 30 million. In Italy, a picture, on the contrary, did not find distributors and was actually banned as anti-Christian pamphlet. Many expressed negatively about the film which provokes hate towards Christians and reinforces false stereotypes about the Catholic Church. Many observers have noted that the film is highly ideological and has a distinct anti-Christian message. According to some critics, on this background suffers art component of the picture. They deemed that the film was very cold; director poorly understood how to show ordinary everyday emotions, thus the usual feelings in the film of Amenabar there is no place; instead of it swarm in the agora some obsessed ants - servants, scientists, politicians. Inspired by the struggle of ideas, Amenábar has ceased to care about making his characters look like living beings, but not people with certain ideology. In the evaluation of the historical and factual correctness of the picture opinions diverge. On the one hand, Amenabar tried to make a movie, so that from a historical perspective to the "Agora" does not undermine, and even historians recognize that Alexandria of the IV century recreated asaccurately as possible, though they criticize sharp discrepancy in age of the protagonist, as in fact she should be about 50 years. On the other hand it is worth noting that there remained no written work of Hypatia and the puzzling fact that Hypatia, according to Amenabar, came up with the law of gravity before Newton and assume elliptical orbits of the planets before Kepler. Generally "Agora" has become a real discovery for me, both in historical terms and in worldview. Such pictures are changing consciousness, especially in cases such as mine. I passed through myself every experience, and draw conclusions from what I see, experience, learn and understand. The film made me reconsider the understanding of the historical process, and the subsequent analysis of historical sources helped to develop own attitude to the interpretation of Alejandro Amenabar historical events of the fifth century BC in Alexandria, Egypt. The film gives a reason to look at the historical course from another point of view, even making some factual errors. But because of them, for example, I checked the original historical sources, in which I never interested before, not having the specific cause. After watching the film once more, you can see the hierarchy of historical issues raised in the film: they are a decent number. But I think that the whole film permeates the basic idea with the statement of which it would be logical to finish my comment: the mind unites us, religion divides us, and they dont made to be together. This film turns to be a moralistic parable about the opposition of religion and philosophy, narrow-mindedness and free thinking. Religion with stones, swords and incitements wins, but if you look from space you will see that Philosophy triumphs. That is worth making a look. References Read More