FILM REVIEW: ÁGORA

IES JOSEP MIQUEL GUÀRDIA

Esperança Martí and Jéssica Ramos, sixth form

The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los “Premios Goya”, are Spain’s main national film awards, considered the Spanish equivalent to the American Academy Awards. The awards were established in 1987, a year after the founding of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, and the first awards ceremony took place in 1987 at the Teatro Lope de Vega, Madrid.

The ceremony continues to take place annually around the end of January, and awards are given to films made during the previous year. The award itself is a small bronze bust of Francisco de Goya created by the sculptor José Luis Fernández.

In the last ceremony the film Ágora directed by Alejandro Amenábar won seven Goya Awards: Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume design,Best production design, Best Makeup & Hair, Best Production supervision and Best Visual Effects.

Agora is a film based on the life of the Philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, the fourth century AD philosopher, scientist and astronomer who taught and lived in Alexandria during the Roman Empire. She was only interested in her intellect and her passion for mathematics and astronomy

The action takes places in the city of Alexandria during the fourth century (391 AD), when Egypt was under the dominion of the Roman Empire. The film explains how Christians attack the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt in the 4th century AD. Agora’s real focus is on the rise of Christianity and the fall of the pagans and the Jews of the city. Hypatia, who is the main character, studies the Universe and she discovers something never imagined before. She prefers to spend her time in the library studying the movement of the Earth and the planets. Hypatia and her pupils fight to save the wisdom of the Ancient World, but at the same time, two men (Orestes and Davo) fight for the love of Hypatia.

Over the time, Alexandrians become Christian but Hypatia the atheist, she will be the only one who will never sacrifice her faith in order to preserve her freedom. She is forced to become Christian, but she refuses, so she is condemned as a witch and ordered her stoning.

We recommend this film because we enjoyed it a lot. We think that it is a great movie and a story but very sad too, more suitable for teenagers and adult people than for children. Ágora is very interesting because you can see how the ancient Egypt was and how Hypatia, the first mathematician woman lived in a male chauvinist world where the most important thing was religion.