I watched Agora again on Christmas Eve and found that it is a very informative film that can be understood from many angles. So, I chose this - the love or sex angle.
Hypathia is a real character in history, but due to insufficient historical data, it is difficult for us to judge how different the Hypathia in the movie is from the real Hypathia. The real Hypathia, a supporter of the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus, was indeed killed by Christian thugs with brutal means (whether it was stoned to death or other cruel methods vary), and it was true that he died alone.
Hypathia in the movie has many admirers and followers, but she always lives in the way she chooses, never shakes, and is "free". She is beautiful, wise, pure...nearly has all the characteristics of a man's ideal of a perfect woman; she is also illusory, and no man can get her, "have" (have) her. But men will still do whatever it takes for this perfect fantasy, which may be the original instinct of nature.
Orestes and Davus are two people with completely different personalities and backgrounds, but I think they are more like two sides of the same person. Orestes is what she looks like, lives a decent life, is strong, has a high profile, and Hypathia says Orestes speaks to her like the spoils of a conquest. In fact, when men pursue women, they are Orestes, or at least they are disguised as Orestes.
But deep down, every man is Davus in front of the woman he loves. They all have low self-esteem and fear that they are not worthy of the goddess in their minds because of their flaws (everyone has flaws, none of them are perfect). Deep down, they looked up humbly, satisfied even if they could only touch the feet of the goddess. The scene where Davus closed his eyes and intoxicated while surreptitiously stroking Hypathia's feet is one of the most beautiful scenes in the whole film (objectively speaking, it should be one of them).
According to Freud, men conquer the world in order to conquer women. Whether a man succeeds is not whether he conquers the world, but whether he can make the woman he loves happy, more precisely, sexual happiness.
View more about Agora reviews
