The word Agora in ancient Greek times indicated a place of public assembly, equally a forum of politics, ideas and commerce. The film by Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar is all of those things, and also great drama and spectacle, but always politics and ideas (its highly successful theatrical release in Spain gives it a bit of the ol’ commerce, too). Agora proves that it is entire possible to have an old-school blockbuster (and I am talking Cecil B. DeMille and Alan Mann spectacle films with casts of thousands wearing togas and swords) coupled with science, mathematics and commentary on modern times nudge shoulders with romance, upheaval and politics of antiquity. A woman hero is at the epicenter of the story: the first significant female mathematician and scholar, Hypatia, depicted in a wonderfully giving and inquisitive performance from Rachel Weisz. Her students worship her, her father dotes on her, the State (the Prefect is former student) seeks advice from her, and the Church considers her ideas, particularly that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around, heretical. In Agora, she is indeed the sun around which all of the other planetary bodies revolve.

The story, told in two parts, first focuses on the fourth century annihilation of the Great Library of Alexandria. The second half, a couple decades later, focuses on the uneasy relationship between the Roman State and the rising political power the Christian bishops as policy makers in both the empire and more specifically, the city of Alexandria. What makes the film great is not so much the intersection of religion and political will (a problem that persists right up until this moment), but how the films focus is on knowledge and inquisitiveness as a trump card over faith and ritual. The central tenant of most religions is to ‘believe’ in the past (scripture, dogma, etc.) where the central tenant of philosophy (Science) is to question the validity of the current models and assumptions. Agora represents this visually in such a fascinating way. When the typical ‘sword and sandal’ violence starts, the camera pulls back to watch the relatively quiet earth from space, whilst leaving the mashing of flesh and bone on the audio. The heavens are both the nature of Hapatia’s inquiry, as well as the location of god (or in the pagan sense, the Gods.)

While the Christians (and the Jews) get a pretty hard shake here (the film is clearly on the side of Hypatia’s inquiry for inquiry’s sake) the film is never so black and white. Take Ammonius, often the instigator of key stoning events (there are many in the film – a warning for the feint of heart) and rabble rousing, is introduced in the Agora as walking on fire to show his faith. Is this part circus act, followed by the aggressive burning of a pagan preacher to proves his point, that highlights the danger of religion as spectacle. That Ammonius tends to the weak and the sick, he is a Parabalani, a lower-class clerical order that was used for both mercy and war around that time, and spends a lot of time ‘rationalizing’ instead of thinking in his conversations with Davus, one Hepatia’s freed young slave and newly baptized Christian, forced in that direction by the upheaval of the Library, and some sexual (and emotional) yearning for his former master. But the old order, who keep the library are just as arrogant and drunk on their own wealth, influence and power. Caught in the middle is Michael Lonsdale, a wonderful character actor (Ronin, Moonraker, Mr. Klein) here Hypatia’s father, head administrator of the Library, who gives the order to sneak attack the Christians, followed by swift regret for his own arrogant idiocy and loss of focus as a scholar. And therein lies the central theme of the film, how can discovery and philosophy flourish in the midst of endless politics and power? How often will the Church or the State snuff out human progress – and a case can be made for the destruction of the Library at Alexandria setting back human progress by about 800 years.

Because little is known about Hypatia, the filmmakers postulate that she did indeed discover how the solar system operates (over 1000 years before Copernicus in the 16th century) but of course was snuffed out by religious leaders content with the earth being flat and the center of the universe, beneath God’s heaven. Really, as religious blockbusters go, Agora and The Life of Brian have a lot in common and would make a fantastic double bill despite the massive difference in tone. But Agora is not content to be a dry treatise on scientific discovery and politics and religion; it features unrequited love, freed slaves, a feminist slant on antiquity, and some incredibly composed cinematography. When the Christians descend on the Great Library, hellbent on destroying the blasphemous documents contained therein, the camera is a wonderful overhead shot that makes the dark-garbed looters look like scuttling cock-roaches. Much of the film was realized without the use of special effects, and it has a tactile, lived-in-ness that is more than welcome for these types of films. The relationship of Hypatia to the prefect Orestes (here played by Oscar Isaac quite differently than his Prince John in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood) goes from a youthful crush of large gestures (unreturned from Hypatia) to an adult love-filled, yet platonic friendship based on respect. Another former pupil, now a Bishop elsewhere in the empire, returns to the uncomfortable position of loyalty to his church and loyalty to his former teacher. Agora manages a lot of plot and a lot of character and a lot of ideas (along with mucho love for geometry) over its 2 hours. As these type of blockbusters go, it is easily best of breed, not the least of which being relevant to day as a point to stimulate conversation. Long live a little Free Thinking.