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Agora (DVD)
Year: 2010
Rating: M
Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Max Minghella, Rachel Weisz
Release Date: March 03, 2011
Distributor: Paramount
The Film: 4.0
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“…a powerful blend of classical historical drama, intimate love triangle, and the search for answers...”
In Alexandria, 391 A. D., two disciples, Davus (Max Minghella) and Orestes (Oscar Isaac) both lust after their teacher - the distinguished philosopher Hypatia (Rachel Weisz). Meanwhile, the winds of change are rapidly sweeping through Ancient Egypt, with the rise of Christianity generating tensions in the existing Pagan order, and subsequently escalating into conflict, symbolised in the destruction of the repository of knowledge housed in the Agora - the library of Alexandria.
Director and co-writer Alejandro Amenábar's (The Others, The Sea Inside) latest film is a powerful blend of classical historical drama, intimate love triangle, and the search for answers to one of the biggest scientific mysteries of the day. Agora is further elevated by the deployment of stunning visual metaphors reminiscent of Ron Fricke's Baraka (1992), and a willingness to intelligently grapple with religious issues that brings to mind Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Needless to say, these issues also have a pressing contemporary relevance.
The cast never hits a false note. Most notably, Weisz proves again that she is one of the finest actresses of her generation, in a role characterised by a fierce independence, while Minghella impresses as a young man who finds that his personal and political beliefs pull in different directions.
In summary, the importance of Agora's subject matter, and the intelligence of its treatment of that subject are truly refreshing.
