Any seen the movie Agora?

by poppers 7 Replies latest social entertainment

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  poppers

  I just watched this on Netflix. Very interesting. Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

  Amazon.com

  Alternating between cosmic splendor and human squalor, Agora is a movie of unusual ambition. In the last days of the Roman Empire, the Egyptian city of Alexandria is torn between the aristocratic pagan society and the emerging, rough-and-tumble Christians. As this broad cultural conflict teeters violently back and forth, the scientist-philosopher Hypatia (Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom, The Fountain) struggles to resolve the motion of the planets with her belief in celestial perfection. Tangled in her life are three men: a Roman prefect (Oscar Isaac, Body of Lies), a Christian bishop (Rupert Evans, Hellboy), and a slave (Max Minghella, The Social Network) who turns to Christianity to escape his unrequited love for Hypatia. Some viewers will be uncomfortable with Agora's depiction of early Christianity and others will quibble about the movie's historical accuracy, but the movie's themes--of faith vs. zealotry, of religion vs. the spirituality of science--and its vivid depiction of one culture being brutally supplanted by another demonstrate a scope seldom found in contemporary film. Writer-director Alejandro Amenábar previously made popular ghost story The Others, mind-bender Open Your Eyes, and heartbreaker The Sea Inside; clearly, this is a career to watch. Don't overlook the deleted scenes--the gorgeous original opening shot accentuates the twin pulls of science and spirituality. --Bret Fetzer

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  The Christians come across like the Taliban.

  http://www.amazon.com/Agora-Rachel-Weisz/dp/B003EYVXXW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301854195&sr=8-1
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  Justitia Themis

  The Christians come across like the Taliban

  I've seen the movie, and at that time in history, the Christians WERE like the Taliban. BTW, I have read in several books that the Christians stripped Hypatia naked and used shells to slowly scrap the skin from her body until she died.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/social/entertainment/202402/1/Excellent-Movie-Agora
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  PublishingCult

  I notice the movie was playing on Showtime when you first posted this thread. It was very interesting. Christians degenerated very quickly from righteous persecuted martyrs to blood-thirsty fanatical murderers.

  Religion: making good people do evil things.
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  poppers

  Christians degenerated very quickly from righteous persecuted martyrs to blood-thirsty fanatical murderers.

  Religion: making good people do evil things.

  Some things just don't change.
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  tec

  I haven't seen it yet. I mean to, though, when I get the chance. I had forgotten about it until your thread.

  Tammy
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  poppers

  BTW, I have read in several books that the Christians stripped Hypatia naked and used shells to slowly scrap the skin from her body until she died.

  I wouldn't doubt this - there is a reference to doing something like that in the movie. It's my guess that showing that would be too controversial for the Christian community; instead, a more Biblicly acceptable stoning was shown. Ain't religion wonderful?
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  maninthemiddle

  Bump, I just saw this, very good movie. So much real history in it.

  Especially using the bible to stop Hypatia ( a woman) from being a teacher, amoung oter things.
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  tec

  I watched it on Saturday. I thought it was heartrending. I was depressed after watching it. I know the history of Christianity from around that time and onward, but still.

  SPOILERS BELOW

  Yes, the immediate thought for these Christians was Taliban for me too. The way they turned on the Jews when there was no one else left to fight. It was hard to watch, because you could see them, the less authoritative Christians feeding the poor and hungry, but also hating those who were not their own; also provoking them, which led to reactions and attack. Of course, the Christians also were reacting to/remembering how they had been persecuted as well, before becoming legal religion.

  Davis was a good character. If you watched closely, you could see even from him how one thing causes a reaction, and so forth. Davis turned away from Hypatia (a peaceful woman, gentle, enlightened, a teacher and loyal... but still a slave to her own prejudices about slaves) because she would not regard him as an equal, him being a slave - something he did not find in his new brothers. Fighting and such was for rifraff and slaves, she said to her students - and so she hurt him, because he was present to hear it. He was also more sincere, I thought, asking his brothers if they ever doubted that they were doing the right thing (in regard to the Jews), saying that Christ pardoned them from the cross. Then he was accused by one of comparing himself to Christ; that only Christ could do that. (and somehow that made it okay to go after the Jews, for the rest of them. )

  It was a good movie, and a good theory about that scripture on women, since it was only brought out and used (in the movie at least) to silence this one woman.

  Tammy