Funereal toga party commemorating the culture clash in a majestic computer-generated Alexandria, pre-Islam: pagans, Christians, Jews. It is no surprise — although given the locale, and given the drift of current events in the region, it is an undoubted provocation — that the Christians, out from under the Roman sandal, get fingered as the prime movers of religious intolerance, desecrators of the all-embracing Library of Alexandria and martyrizers of the 4th-century philosopher and mathematician, Hypatia, a dim persona from distant history until Rachel Weisz stepped into the role to give her form, substance, and a starry glow. The latter’s private struggle to understand the Earth’s orbit proves to be more engrossing, if no more free of modern axe-grinding and historical rewriting, than the inexorable and escalating sectarian strife. One can be prepared to believe all manner of bad things about Christians without believing that their silencing of this solitary independent voice, this feminist demigoddess, set back the cause of astronomy by more than a millennium. With Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, and Sami Samir; directed by Alejandro Amenábar. (2010) — Duncan Shepherd
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