Conclavea film directed by Edward Berger and based on the book of the same name by Robert Harris, has a self-explanatory title. Conclave, with-keylocked. The expression was first used in 1200 to describe the procedure by which, within 20 days of the death of a pope, the cardinals meet to elect a new one. The film gives us that key; the seals are broken and we can enter, peek through the keyhole of something that is in fact administrative but which precisely the secret makes it interesting, sacred for believers.
The cast is one of the strong points of Conclave: a Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s ListVoldemort in Harry Potter and much more) incredible in the role of the dean Thomas Lawrence, an equally good Stanley Tucci, the Italians Isabella Rossellini and Sergio Castellitto more than up to their respective roles.
The film is aesthetically impeccable; shot between the Cinecittà studios and the Caserta Regia, it plays on the contrast between the sacred and the profane, between even rather violent power games, dramatic shadows and dusty, Caravaggio-esque lights. This way of posing the theme even before describing it with human dynamics is evident from the beginning, from the moment a pile of cigarettes appears in the cloister. Are they there because of the tourists or do they belong to men of faith? It is implied that they are the latter, who appear anything but free from defects. There is an archbishop with alcoholism problems, and above all Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco (Castellitto), an Italian-American who does not disdain the electronic cigarette and who arrogantly aspires to victory.
«No one in their right mind would want the papacy», Stanley Tucci, here Cardinal Aldo Bellini, tells us. Avoiding spoilers, we can say that something similar to what happened to the character that Tucci himself played in Devil wears Pradamuch to the public's dismay.
Castellitto who plays the cardinal who vapes (a newly coined term accepted a few years ago by the Accademia della Crusca) is rather laughable, it echoes the contrasts of a certain Rome from Great Beauty and it makes us forgive the absolute excess with which the character is made to gesticulate: it is probable that there is not a single Italian who moves his hands so much while speaking.
Cardinal Tedesco (he, Castellitto) is reactionary, aggressive and racist, he wants a church that goes back at least a century. By going against him, a power play occurs in which Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and other cardinals formulate their program in opposition to his. It is a political work, it is said: “I would say not to mention women”, because they are progressive yes, but not too much. The film is in fact very male-dominated, and this appears as a criticism of the Church. The exception is a small group of nuns among which the interpretation of a grim, intense and wonderful Isabella Rossellini stands out, dea ex machina on the finale.
But it is Ralph Fiennes who carries the bull's-eye of the narrative upon himself. Being the dean responsible for administering the conclave, it is through his gaze that we discover the background. Backstory that would surprise us less if it consisted of one-eyed beatings. All the while Dean Lawrence seems modest and contrite, only to reveal himself very differently in private. Until the end of the film it is not possible to understand whether she is the cardinal version of Regina George of Mean Girls (including the scene in which he prints slander, however true, about the cardinals and distributes it incognito) or a holy man, and this is a highlight of his interpretation.
The present and criticism of the Church burst into history, and it does so in an unexpected way: if Cardinal Adeyemi from Nigeria were elected he would be the first black pope, but very soon we learn that his is an extremely reactionary thought. The discussion about black presidents who nevertheless make racist, sometimes warmongering choices is very topical, similarly for female presidents who violently undermine the rights of other women. Talking about a potential pope of this type is the most courageous in this sense.
The ending is astounding. It concerns the archbishop of Kabul and the secret surrounding his state of health. Dean Lawrence investigates: the archbishop of Kabul worked as a missionary in several theaters of war, so the viewer thinks (if he is aware of it) of the damage caused by depleted uranium. Damage from depleted uranium which, it must be remembered, has to do with Afghanistan and involves the population who lives there and also many thousands of soldiers, sent there and not protected by the State, who returned home with very serious damage. Some of them took longer to fight in court against Italy – among the countries that did not provide adequate protection despite knowing – than against a tumor. Others didn't have that time. The archbishop of Kabul, however, has no damage from depleted uranium: the theme of the film changes and returns to the initial reference on women. Expelled from history, expelled from casting, expelled from the church: but no. We find out through your booking, then cancelled, for a laparoscopic hysterectomy. What would happen if the new pope was a non-binary person? What they once called a hermaphrodite. “I am as God made me,” says the archbishop of Kabul candidly. At the end of a film that realistically shows how cynical the curia's power games can be, a vision that is actually full of faith wins. Was the choice of an ending in which faith and not power wins to avoid attacks from the Vatican or is it authentic? Unfortunately it seems that the reason is the first. Otherwise it is inexplicable why the phenomenal Carlos Dihez was chosen to play a person with female genitals. Is it easier to imagine an intersex pope than an intersex actor playing him? In 2024, apparently yes.
