Holy Crap
Corruption in the Vatican? Politicking and smear campaigns among cardinals? is the Pope CAtholic?
Conclave
Director: Edward Berger • Writer: Peter Straughan, based on the book by Robert Harris
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, Lucian Msamati, Isabella Rossellini, Carlos Diehz
UK / USA • 2hrs
Opens Hong Kong Dec 19 • IIA
Grade: A-
There’s no denying that the fundamental secrecy and shadowy shenanigans of the Catholic Church are great thriller fodder, so it’s not hard to fathom how director Edward Berger made a Vatican City political thriller in Conclave, his follow-up to the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front. Berger drops half a dozen or so stock mystery characters on a chessboard – or maybe a game of Clue – and moves them around as if they were players in a spy thriller. Along the way he winds up with a curious meditation on the limits of faith, the perils of blind faith, acceptance and the power of ritual. And he makes a movie with a conclusion you did. Not. See. Coming.
After the sitting pope dies, Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, tremendous), Dean of the College of Cardinals, is summoned to the Holy See to preside over the election of the next pontiff. Lawrence is a fairly liberal Brit who’d like to see the Catholic Church inch closer to the 21st century, but doesn’t want the job for himself, unsure as he is about the strength of his faith. But he gets busy wrangling the Cardinals for Conclave – which is a bit like herding cats – including the frontrunners. It’s an election. There are frontrunners. The big four are: Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci, fantastic), an American liberal not afraid to point out the Church’s child molestation problem; Canadian moderate and keener Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow, amazing, you sensing a pattern?); Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati, Gangs of London), a Nigerian hardline conservative who would be good PR; and Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), an Italian right-wing reactionary. But also welcomed into the Conclave to vote at the last minute is a wild card, Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican archbishop secretly working in Afghanistan. The doors close, the Cardinals are sequestered in the Domus Sanctae Marthae – and the games begin.
Oddly, not the Vatican
There are two movies in Conclave. The first is a fascinating peek behind the Vatican curtain and an up close look at the pomp and ceremony of the Church, all rendered with fastidious attention to detail. Elle cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine leans hard on symmetry and colour to reflect the ebb and flow of the Cardinals’ moods and emotions, and of the current state of the various campaigns. Blood red robes stand in stark contrast to the black and white marble-lined walls, some of them recreated at Cinecittà or body doubled by Caserta Palace (go see that monstrosity). There’s an air of superior pageantry to the Church that’s simultaneously intimidating and infuriating – it took donations to help rebuild one of its most sacred sites at Notre Dame, even though it has more money than God – and Berger captures that duality in physical spaces that the Cardinals no doubt also feel as they move around.
The second is an admittedly audacious deconstruction of an institution defined and restricted by those ceremonies, and of one man’s attempt to rediscover his place within it, even as he uncovers layer upon layer of corruption, secrets and lies held by the past pope and his minions. There’s a hidden agenda around every corner, and a flawed man (yes, man) behind every plot, which Lawrence dispatches his trusty right hand, Monsignor Raymond O'Malley (Brían F O’Byrne), to suss out. As factions form and lines are drawn between the shifting favourites, Lawrence’s foundations are shaken more violently each passing hour. Then there’s the mystery of what drunken Archbishop Janusz Woźniak (Jacek Koman) knows of the Pope’s last night, what Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) can testify to, secret documents and of course, Benitez, who may or may not be a weapon left behind by the dead pope. There are James Bond films out there with less intrigue than Conclave.
Screenwriter Peter Straughan penned the excellent adaptation of Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (and the dreadful adaptation of his The Snowman) and here makes the most of Robert Harris’s twisty, turny novel, and keeps the element of piling on – daring us to find the line in the sand that makes us throw up the hands with an exasperated “Enough!” Yes, for some the final curveball will be a bridge way too fuckin’ far for a number of reasons. And yes, there’s a level of narrative laziness to Conclave, which will inspire the pious to point out that the “good” Cardinals are all progressive and the “bad” Cardinals are all knuckle draggers. Fair. But Berger is far from anti-God or anti-faith. The problems in Conclave are the result of institutions that would abuse our faith, refuse to move forward with a changing world and dismiss corruption. As Bellini points out at one point, there’s nothing fundamentally broken about belief, it’s the organisation that needs fixing.