L'Oracle

The two hours and a half movie has a lot of good things going for it. First there is the acting, coming from people that are mostly quite unknown, but which is good even for actors in secondary roles. Stellan Skarsgård and Ben Kingsley do, as expected, a great job. Then there are the landscapes, starting from wet green Britain and ending in the Arabian desert. But of course, the best of it all is the story.

In an age where Europe is a cesspool of ignorance and filth, while the East is where the knowledge resides, the plot follows a young boy witnessing the death of his mother from an incurable disease, which I assume is appendicitis, and grows to want to become a healer. Pretending to be a Jew, he travels to the Middle East to train with a famous and wise healer, played by Kingsley. He proceeds in defeating diseases, healing friends and finding the love of his life, while religious extremism and violence stretch through the region.

Now, I have some qualms with some of the details of the story. I understand they tried to describe a larger piece of history in the span of a single movie and I also understand that drama requires brutal realism while the mechanisms of movie making require happy endings and satisfying the money people. However, there are some things that just don't sit well, like presenting Europeans as filthy barbarians using their faith only to oppress, the Arabs as either tyrants or violent zealots, while Jews are all nice, helpful and never take up weapons to hurt anyone. This kind of unilateral bias sours an otherwise quite nice and beautiful story. The repeated scenes of the Torah burning (oy vey) while tomes of medical knowledge burning in Ibn Sina's university were mere an afterthought is one of those things, too.

Bottom line: the switch from filthy barbarism to enlightened richness, from decadence to overzealous morality, from peaceful people to thieves and murderers and all back again makes for an inconsistent world. However it is a nicely presented world, with interesting well played characters in epic journeys that change their and the viewer's perspective on the world. A well done movie, I would have preferred it less biased and more focused, but one can't look a horse gift in the mouth; after all, how many new movies are there to advocate science and knowledge over special effects and cheap emotions? Good film. You should watch it.

I can understand that many history buffs would be disappointed with the movie. Okay, it is historical inaccurate, but it's just entertainment. The same with any novel which introduces fictional characters and imaginary or altered historical events. An example: In one of the best movies of all time (at least for me)Ben-Hur, the main character, played by Charles Heston, when almost dying of thirst, is given water by Jesus. Later on he tries to help Jesus carry the cross. Bible followers could be appalled by this since it never appear nor in he Bible or in the Christian traditions. This is very common with all historical novels or movies based on real life characters. Producers and directors play for their public at a given time. As in the movies of World War ll, Japanese where demons and all Nazis murderous monsters; in this day and age, anyone from the East or Middle East wearing a cloth around his head or a burka, is a fanatical zealot. As we know (or should know), that is not necessarily true.

So in the movie we have at hand I can safely say that is a very entertaining movie, with excellent photography, breathtaking landscapes, good action, excellent acting and an overall a very interesting story. What really bothered me was the almost quantum jumps it makes in its story line. How this impoverished boy managed to get accepted into a prestigious and exclusive medical school without even knowing the language? Furthermore, it is never explained how he managed to have the resources to live quite a lavish in this progressive city. Probably you'll have to read the book to find a plausible explanation. In the other hand, I cannot discard this movie because of its glitches. It has lots of other aspects going for it; specially that it made me feel good; it had that old time spectacular grandeur that has been lacking in today boisterous blockbusters.

While this movie is well acted and beautifully shot, there are so many departures from the original story that I couldn't help feeling a little let down. It's true that to include everything written by Noah Gordon would require a mini-series (which would have been a good idea) , there are a number of things that gave the story more depth that could easily have been included. An accurate account of where Rob J Cole was born would have been a good start.

Despite these omissions The Physician is still a good watch.

For those who question the truth of this title, it's fiction, total fiction.

I just watch the movie and from movie point of view its really a very nice one. But what i didn't like and i'm amazed why such thing be written and them made a movie of which includes history and an altered one. Ibn Sina was a great Muslim scientist who has expertise in Medicine, Phylosophy, Metaphysics and many more. He died early and not by suicide but by a natural death. If instead of Ibn Sine they had used some other fictional Muslim name, a fictional place and fiction Shaw then that would be understandable but writing the wrong history, by altering not only a lot of facts and figures and then making a movie out of it is not good ethically and morally. I guess any historical publications and movies should go through some check before being released unless such things are done on purpose.

Really people! This was a good movie! Its entertainment. I did not watch this for historical value. Since movies are always,always altered for impact, even a work of fiction. If I wanted to know the true accounting of someones life I would read a history book. But this movie made me want to know the truth about this history because it change the way medicine advanced and in turn Life. Again, movies are for letting someone enjoy time away from a ordinary Life. No 10..a little long but they don't have 9 1/2 and in order to tell this story we needed to see all of what was shown. If you watch movies not documentaries and even then, don't expect the truth. Movie: story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images and shown in a theater or on television; a motion picture. Stop harping on political,social injustice, and religious inconsistencies and just enjoy the MOVIE.