Agora

Alejandro Amenabar’s latest was a major disappointment to me.  The recreation of  Alexandria in the latter days of the Roman Empire, from Lighthouse to Library, is impressive and convincing, and the story of the philosopher Hypatia is treated with much more seriousness than the typical “sword & sandal” epic, but there is a failure to reanimate ancient characters in a believable way.  I expected more from Rachel Weisz in the lead role, and the three students who are “hot for teacher” remain vapid and opaque, as they grow up to become, respectively -- freed slave and Christian militant, Christian bishop, and converted Roman prefect.  This film has spectacle, but little intimacy or feel for the remoteness of the past.  Hypatia’s anticipation of the Copernican revolution that would a millennium later overturn the Ptolemaic system may be a bit of a reach, but it’s a reach few films would attempt.  And Amenabar seemed the man to do it, but alas, no.  I endorse the film’s look and ambition, and its larger lessons of the perpetual conflict between religious fanatics and citadels of learning, but find the drama inert, even drowsy.  (MC-55)