For a film set in the holy heart of the Catholic Church, Edward Berger’s Conclave makes for an unusually riveting, fun and entertaining ride, driven primarily by a superbly well-tuned, heavy-duty ensemble packed with star names—Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini—and more so thanks to Peter Straughan’s Golden Globe-winning, crisp screenplay, based on a 2016 novel by Robert Harris.
The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and recently played in the Special Screenings segment of Marrakech International Film Festival. On the death of the Pope, the British Cardinal Dean Thomas Lawrence (Fiennes) is called upon to gather the College of Cardinals to elect his successor. As the audience gets to witness several successive rounds of voting, in the face of the majority eluding any one of the contestants, it also gets introduced to each of the aspirants and the human dreams, aspirations and baser instincts driving their supposedly spiritual pursuits. Hidden happenings, secrets and lies, sexual scandals and accusations of misconduct slowly come to light as political intrigues and machinations begin to rear their head. While claiming to not be covetous, the group of Cardinals in contention does seek Papacy and wants to ascend the Throne of the Holy See. Not just that they’d go to any lengths for it, including simony, bribing, buying votes and besmirching a rival’s reputation.
It lends a quintessentially Shakespearean touch to the action. The dramaturgical element is also underscored by the fact that the entire action is shot indoors in the Vatican with the Sistine Chapel serving as a proscenium of sorts. Interiority is the hallmark of the film. Just as each of the cardinals in the film is sequestered for reasons of free and fair elections, so is the film itself cloistered when it comes to the limited scenes of action. As the camera plays with the architectural details of the Sistine Chapel with a sombre score playing in the background, the sense of movement comes from the exchanges between the characters and a walk through their minds and inner workings, the unexpected turns of the plot and the unforeseen twist in the end. The contemporary political reality is more than evident as one of the candidates compares the Conclave to an American political convention. Every issue plaguing the world, from racism to gender discrimination, to hate politics, divisiveness, intolerance and Islamophobia gets ticked. Broad brushstrokes? Perhaps. Superficial? Yes. But what’s compelling and commendable is the Church shown as engaging in a dialogue with itself in terms of what lies ahead for it. Should it move with the times or continue to embrace the old ways or go back further to repressive times?
The late Pope cuts an admirable figure having secretly appointed Mexican Cardinal Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz) as Archbishop of Kabul, among the other acts of radical stirrings. Of all the candidates, Aldo Bellini (Tucci) of the United States wants to carry his liberal ways forward, championing divorce, gay rights and contraception and batting for women being given more role in The Curia; Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) of Nigeria might have the makings of the first African Pope in history but is still tradition-bound. Joseph Tremblay (Lithgow) of Canada walks the ineffective middle, moderate course and Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) of Italy is an out and out conservative. So who wins from the lot?
As Lawrence spells out in his Homily before the Conclave, certainty is the enemy of unity and tolerance. Faith must go hand in hand with doubt. Without doubt, there’s no mystery and without mystery there’s no need for faith. So, the future Pontiff, according to him, must be one who doubts and sins and asks for forgiveness and carries on. For the benefit of the world, the one who gets eventually elected is someone who claims to “exist between the world’s uncertainties”. All hail Pope Innocent.
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