Ágora

On December 18th, when Agora is released worldwide, I strongly recommend all you non-Spaniards go buy a ticket and see it in theatres.  At the request of my legnua professor (this is somewhat ironic, as the film is in English), I went to see this last night.  I was already pretty excited for it as this movie has garnered a good amount of attention (both negative and positive) in the Spanish press, and as I have loved all of the other films that I have seen that Agora's director has worked on.


Agora, by Goya-winning director, Alejandro Amenábar, is based on the life of Hypatia, the 4th century philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician.  It tracks her life as a teacher and as a researcher, and the political and religious atmosphere surrounding her in Alexandria during this time.

Upon leaving the theatre, the two friends with which I went to see the movie and I were unable to stop talking about it, a conversation that lasted hours both in person and online when we got home, as the themes demonstrated by Amenábar remain issues in our own society today.  One was struck by the intolerance shown to people of other religions by the fanatics within any given religion (and, at times, subtly by those who would not be considered fanatics at all).  The other was deeply moved by the physical and political abuse against women, particularly in the name of religion.

Both of these themes were evident and significant to me, but what I found most compelling was the way in which religious fanatics have attacked intellectuals and their studies for millennia.  Longer even than we have had science, we have had religion to explain our world.  As science has slowly explained the phenomena around us, however, our religions have in many ways remained the same, and so the two studies have, in some manners, come to contradict each other.  I do not mean to blindly defend scientists of any field, as I have seen too many students roll their eyes at "those silly religious types,"and I believe that there is as much to learn about this world from any given spirituality as there is from the more secular studies, nonetheless, this discrimination has often been a two-way street.

There is a scene in Agora in which an angry Christian mob descends upon the Library of Alexandria and eagerly destroys the books encased in its shelves.  The Christians are dirty and dressed in black, and as the scrolls fly over their heads, the camera slowly rotates up to watch the books in the air, then continues to rotate until the whole scene is shown upside down.  The symbolism behind the rotating camera is rich (the world of the Alexandrians is being turned upside down by the religious and political turmoil, while at the same time Hypatia and her students are exploring the possibility of an Earth that rotates upon itself), yet is is impossible to ignore the implication that the Christians, in their eagerness to destroy the knowledge in said books they are returning themselves to an uncivilized, "upside-down" culture.

Watching this scene, I could not help but think of the book burnings of later cultures, or the continuation today of schools attempting to ban books that challenge their religious beliefs.  A particularly funny example of this is And Tango Makes Three, a picture book based on the true story of two male penguins that raised their own baby penguin, which was one of the most challenged books in 2008 on the grounds that it is anti-family, and for its religious viewpoint.  Now, I have not read this book, but I have to wonder where exactly religion fit into the lives of these penguins...  Evidently the fanatics depicted in Amenábar's work are not the only ones living in an upside-down culture.

As I said before, I do not support the quick dismissive-ness with which some intellectuals treat religion and its members, I for one was raised in the Christian church, and my background has never conflicted with my education, yet the tension between these two groups, particularly when it comes to the attitude of those involved in institutionalized religion towards scientific studies, and specifically books, is clearly long-lasting and deeply entrenched in our global history.

So...I hope you all do go see this film, and just in case what I've written hasn't intrigued you: there's romance, action, drama, history, science, AND you won't have to read subtitles(!), which should hopefully be enough to convince anyone.

Un beso.