Film Review | Agora

While the rest of the world squabbles about its portrayal of Christianity and its historical inaccuracy, Maltese audiences can take some very simple pleasure out of Alejandro Amenábar’s historical ‘reason vs. superstition’ epic Agora. It is the first film in recent memory to give Malta – and a plethora of Maltese actors – an undeniable prominence, and to fully integrate the island and its talent into the overall texture of the film, rather than simply employing it as backdrop and prop.

Beyond this, it’s difficult to gauge how audiences will respond to it. While the Chilean-born director, whose previous work includes the Nicole Kidman ghost drama The Others and the Javier Bardem-starring The Sea Inside, adds a definite gravitas to already weighty subject matter, there is definitely something missing throughout.

The story takes us back to th 4th century AD, with Egypt under the gradually waning hold of the Roman Empire. Violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city’s famous Library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the ancient world. Among them are the two men competing for her heart: the witty, privileged Orestes (Oscar Isaac) and Davus (Max Minghell), Hypatia’s young slave, who is torn between his secret love for her and the freedom he knows can be his if he chooses to join the unstoppable surge of the Christians.

Call it a knee-jerk reaction to any historical drama that isn’t punctuated by arbitrary sex scandals and stirring, bloody battle scenes, but focusing on a philosopher, while definitely an admirable move, does not for heart-thumping cinema make. This is forgivable, however. The film makes up for its initially unexciting premise with some beautiful cinematography and costumes, plunging the audience into a world distinctly different from our own. What is less easy to stomach, however, is its inability to stick to a single plot strand or character. This is supposed to be Hypatia’s film and yet, the trajectory swerves out of her orbit for far too long, the large cast of religiously conflicted characters taking centre stage for long periods of time.

Yes, this is a large, tangled story (it arguably contains one of the most important narratives of Western civilization), but it would have benefited from some narrative compression and emotional punch. As it is, the emotion is delivered in staggered dollops, the narrative just winds on. Once again, this is the way history works, but should films work this way too.

While some of the supporting players disappoint, the key cast members deliver some powerful performances. Weisz is at her best (and she was never really bad at all) – inquisitive and dedicated, there are shades of her character in The Constant Gardener here. Oscar Isaac, convincingly playing both sides and torn apart by two religions, delivers masterfully and reminds us why he was, in fact, the best thing about Scott’s recent Robin Hood revamp. Expect great things from him soon enough. But it is Max Minghella who I’m most excited about. Juggling both vulnerable and violent, his character arguably becomes easier to latch onto as this winding epic crashes its way to a tragic conclusion.

That Amenábar has an anti-Christian bias (though perhaps ‘fundamentalism’ would be more accurate) is, try as we might, difficult to deny. As Christians are ransacking the famous Library of Alexandria, the camera pulls up, depicting them as a swarm of cockroaches. The erratic Cyril himself is also difficult to like, and Davus’s conversion feels less like a move towards true liberation than freedom-through-terrorism.  

Amenábar’s prosaic delivery of the story – the gorgeous cinematography notwithstanding – seems to want to deflate its emotional heft in the hope that we would all just stop to give reason a chance. This is made very clear through the title itself: ‘Agora’ means forum. Even though, sadly, the religious squabbling that eventually leads to violence recalls another bulwark of local culture: The Times of Malta online comments section.