O’k, I know the movie ‘Conclave’ can scarcely be considered a Science Fiction movie but let’s just agree that history is a science and the ancient traditions and ceremony connected to the election of a Pope is certainly historical. Anyway, I haven’t reviewed a movie in a while and ‘Conclave’ was a very interesting movie, well worthy of a review.
I’ve already given away the basic plot, the Pope in Rome has died, he’d had heart problems for some time so it doesn’t come as a shock. In order to elect a new Pope the College of Cardinals must be summoned. The task of making the arrangements for the Conclave falls to two men, the Dean of the College, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, along with Archbishop Wozniak as papal Camerlengo, played by Jacek Koman. By ancient tradition all of the Cardinals are sequestered during their deliberations and the Dean of the College runs the Conclave from the inside while the Camerlengo makes sure that the outside world does not intrude on the work of the Conclave.
Half the fun of the movie is seeing in detail all of the traditions and ceremony that surround the election of the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the film great care is taken in every little detail of the process by which a new pontiff is chosen along with highlighting the beautiful, sumptuous locations, the actual voting itself is carried out in the Sistine Chapel surrounded by Michelangelo’s artwork.
At the same time we also get to see something of the church’s darker side, particularly in respect to women. Throughout the first third of the movie we constantly see nuns working in the background, preparing the guest rooms, setting the tables, cooking the food. During this time no woman speaks however, not even Sister Agnes the Mother Superior of the Nuns, played by Isabella Rossellini. The women do all of the work while the men do all of the talking.
All the machinery of the Conclave is just background however, the melodrama of the movie comes with the Cardinals who are the leading candidates to be the next Pope. The leading Liberal is Aldo Cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci, who wants the church to become more tolerant of different sexual behaviors while giving women greater roles in the church hierarchy. At the other extreme is Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco, played by Sergio Castellitto, who still wants the mass to be said in Latin. In between are Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, played by John Lithgow and Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi, played by Lucian Msamati, a Nigerian Cardinal who wants the church to use its great wealth and power to help the people of the developing world. A last minute, and unexpected addition to the College of Cardinals is Vincent Cardinal Benitez, played by Carlos Diehz, who administers to those Catholics still living in Afghanistan. Benitez was secretly made a Cardinal by the deceased Pope because his life could have been in danger if knowledge of his appointment had become known to the Taliban who rule Afghanistan.
Throughout history the actual Conclave has been the setting for intrigue, political maneuvering and scandal and in the movie ‘Conclave’ there is plenty of all three. One leading contender is revealed to have had a sexual relationship with a nun thirty years earlier while a second candidate is found to have bribed several of the Cardinals to vote for him! Add to that a terrorist threat on the outside and there is certainly a lot to distract the cardinals from their task of electing a new Pope.
And that’s part of the problem I have with ‘Conclave’ there’s a bit to much melodrama and it’s all a bit too broad, too simple. The writers try too hard to highlight every one of the conflicts going on in the church at present and wind up giving a simplified, cartoon version of each point of view. Of course this is a movie and the problems in a movie have to be simple enough so that they can be solved by the end of the film. The real Catholic Church has been wrestling with its real problems for almost two thousand years now, with no end in sight.
Still ‘Conclave’ is a good movie, an important movie; for one thing the acting is superb, along with the costumes and set design. Basically everything that relates to a real conclave is carefully reproduced. So I recommend ‘Conclave’, with about a billion and a half Catholics in the world today its important to understand just how it is that their spiritual leader is chosen.