Agora

Ok I wanted to see the film in the cinema, & it won't be.....but since Mrs.Wanda burned it & wrote about it,It catched my intrest & i wanted to see although I"ve read her post,

I thought I"m the professional in this but here we goes, the story here part o it is true but of cours not all!!!!!

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom, Rupert Evans, Michel Lonsdale, Homayoun Ershadi, Sammy Samir

Director-screenwriter: Alejandro Amenabar

The heart of the film is Hypatia (Rachel Weisz in an unfaltering performance), the fourth century AD philosopher and teacher who lived in Alexandria during the Roman Empire. Married only to her unquenchable intellect and passion for mathematics and astronomy, she is loved by two men: her slave, Davus (Max Minghella), and her student, Orestes (Oscar Isaac).Politics in the film are weakest during the overtly political speeches and monologues, and best captured in the details. Like many, Davus seeks not spiritual salvation in the Christian uprising but freedom from slavery, despite the bloodshed. His first attempt at prayer is brilliant: Unable to remember the Lord's Prayer, he quickly falls into a mantra to God to keep Hypatia away from Orestes.
For his part.As Orestes claimed his love to Hepatia in the theatre by playing ger piece of harmonic music.later she embaress him in the class & Davus consider it answer for his prayer.
The story starts in 369AD as tensions in the city market area (“agora”) between polytheistic Pagans and Jesus-worshipping Christians have reached new highs. The director of the library Theon (Lonsdale) is hoping to hand over control to his daughter Hypatia, but the religious leaders of the city are reluctant to let a woman take over in such a volatile religious climate.
Indeed it is the religious leaders who incite an attack on the Christians as they gather in the agora to hurl abuse at the pagan gods. The massacre leaves many Christians dead but the pagans underestimate the Christian numbers, they are overcome and barricade themselves into the library compound.
Hypatia is among those trapped inside with her pupil Orestes (Isaac) and slave Davus (Minghella) both of whom are in love with her. But the three are torn apart when the openly Christian Roman emperor Valentinian decrees that the pagans must surrender the Library to the Christians, who proceed to sack it. Davus, who has been inspired by the tenets of Christianity, stays behind with the Christians, leaving Hypatia and Orestes to flee. He returns to her & asks but she frees him from slavery
Then the story since moves the plot forward several years. Orestes is now the prefect of the region and a Christian convert, Hypatia lives in Alexandria unhampered in her astronomical research and Davus has joined the Christian city militia the Parabolani.
But more trouble is ahead. Under the tyrannical leadership of the bishop Cyril (Sammy Samir), the Christians start to wage war on the Jewish population of Alexandria, stoning them during a music performance on the Sabbath and launching a full-scale massacre after the Jews retaliate.
Meanwhile Hypatia, who is close to making a breakthrough in her theories about the universe, is the next target for the Christians as Cyril has her declared unclean and a sorceress, causing the Prefect and the Parabalanus to choose between their church and the woman they love.so she was sentenced to death by being pagan & witch craft,
They choose the church, later davus start to look more closer to the part where jesus forgave & pardon jewish, & he was pardoned once by hepatia,
we see that he runs at the end to try to save Hepatia from the masacre plot, but he willnot manage, but as for her he will kill her mercifully beore they stone her & skin her alive
As is history when hatred and power lust are corruptly instrumentalized in the name of a single, incontestable truth.
There is also no question as to what side the filmmakers are on. The Christians in "Agora" are more preoccupied with slaughtering than spirituality and the only truly principled character is Hypatia the atheist, who may have come close to proving that the Earth revolves around the sun 1,200 years before Johannes Kepler. She is the only one who never sacrifices her unwavering "faith," in reason and intellectual freedom, for personal gain.
I find it a great movie, it was very sad to see the library destroyed, and so the death of a great philosopher who would have started the women's right movement long ago :), i think the idea was to show that at the end of paganism it was almost a private club, but Christianity was for everyone rich and poor. it doesn't attack any beliefs but it shows the dangers of dogma and fundamentalism
Well Also it remind with an arabic book called azzazil, it also a stroy about this era, but this is another storyI think such era's carch our intrests, like que vadis, troy, Alexander,...... etc

p.s I think this film more for women, it concentrate about hepatia, but its really intresting well hope u enjoy burning the film :))))