Agora History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Agora History - Essay Example Agora is an historical Spanish drama film produced in 2009. The movie was directed by Alejandro Amenabar. Agora represents a movie genre that is increasingly rare. The movie is based in the happenings of the 4th century in the Roman Empire. The whole story focuses on a 4th century Greek astronomer called Hypatia.The movie therefore represents a successful project of making a movie about the past period while at the same time, making a movie about the present (Germain 12). The historical movie was set in roman Egypt, specifically, at the end of the Roman Empire. In the last days of the empire, the Alexandria city in Egypt was torn. There came a split between Christians and the pagans and due to their large numbers, Christians gained political power. They therefore set the standard of morality that was a must-abide for all who wanted to survive. There are several religious aspects that are evident in the film (Pollard and Howard 64). Religious domination and war between religious group s is seen when Christians destroyed pagan gods and waged war against pagans. The Jews were caught in between this leading to divisions among them. Many pagans were converted to Christianity as well as some Jews like Dave, Hypatia’s slave. They shifted to Christianity to save themselves of trouble from this powerful group. Others stuck to the Jewish religion and there emerged open war and hatred between Christians and the Jews. Devout Jews became victims of the war against paganry. Religion was also use to cover up for the rejection of the ideas of some people. For example, Hypatia was not really interested in religion but in making discoveries and selling her ideas to the people. she was victimised on religious grounds because most of the Christians did not support her views. This also depicted the religious hypocrisy of that time. The Christians were not ready to forgive Hypatia as Jesus, their perfect example, forgave those who sinned against him. Religious leaders could on ly stand with the rights of Christians instead of humanity, representing God’s precious creation. Although some people may criticise the movie for emphasising on early Christianity, especially the dominating nature of Roman Catholic, the movie has a high historic accuracy. Rohter (10) observes that the themes of religions verses spirituality and faith verses zealotry are clearly brought out. This religious rottenness was powerful enough even to nullify other binding factors among people. This is seen when Synesius and Dave, at one point, turn against Hypanthia because of sticking to Jewish religions yet they were in love with her. The clash between education and religion, and knowledge and faith leads to destruction of the library. The making of a present time movie out of the past period represents a high level of creativity in the movie. Amenabar developed the movie as a result the interest he developed by exploring the night sky. In 2004, he took a break after producing on e of his movies and he travelled to the island of Malta. Stevens (5) notes that while there, Amenabar discussed astronomy with this friends and they begun speculating about extraterrestrial life found on other planets. They studied famous astrologers like the Ptolemy, Galileo, Copernicus and Johannes but the story of this 4th century astrologer was most interesting. The film is therefore cerebral, ambitious and complex. Unlike most toga movies, Agora does not depend on CHI spectacle but on ideas and real drama. The political situation at this time was poor and discriminative. When Christians waged war against the Jews, the rulers of the city of Alexandria were not powerful enough to stop it and the situation got out of hand. Despite