EDWARD BERGER follows his monumental remake of All Quiet on the Western Front with a film finding hope through human frailty. In Conclave (Cert. 12A), Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), Dean of the College of Cardinals, must supervise the election of a pope.
A gentle and good administrator, he is nobody’s fool. It becomes apparent that the 108 voters need to decide between somebody representing a forward-looking liberal pontificate — the prime candidate being Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) — and one who believes in returning the Church to its traditional, conservative outlook. Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) fulfils humorous references to American Presidential elections, with his Make Catholicism Great Again’s misogynistic, Islamophobic campaign.
In a film based on Robert Harris’s bestseller, don’t expect an intrigue-ridden couple of hours of candidates striving for the necessary two-thirds majority. Conclave, albeit with twists and turns, is subtler. This gathering at the Casa Santa Marta seems to occasion the secrets of all hearts being disclosed, not through coercion, but a genuine effort to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. It is acknowledged that, at least with several contenders, the Conclave will never find any candidate who doesn’t have a black mark against him.
Earthen vessels they may be, but ones equipped with belief that they house treasure through which God’s power may manifest itself. Lawrence’s inaugural mass homily is tone-setting. “There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others,” he says, “certainty. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith.”
The Church is not about yesterday or today, but what we do next — such as, would voting for a black pontiff be tokenism if he wanted gay people jailed in this world and consigned to hell in the next? Bellini and Tedesco, though poles apart, agree on one thing. This is a war, and cardinals need to choose their sides.
It takes the surprise arrival of Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), Archbishop of Kabul (Baghdad in the novel), to counter such notions. Unknown to others because the Pope privately made him a cardinal in pectore, Latin for “in the breast”, Benitez shows them a more excellent way. Having witnessed some of the most atrocious acts of violence in the places that he has served, he urges colleagues to resist what the world too often does: taking sides.
Sequestered as they are in the Vatican, it is, in effect, a religious microcosm of a United Nations General Assembly; but is there a feminine dimension to its proceedings? The film grapples slightly cheekily with the reality that there are also women in God’s world. (Look out for the closing shot of Conclave.) Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) heads a party of nuns who keep bodies and souls together through their ministrations. In doing so, they offer valuable insights that challenge and enrich deliberations. With, too, the sumptuous recreation of the Sistine Chapel and marbled halls of the Vatican to bathe the solemnities in a riot of colours and light, this makes for a film that will long remain in pectore.
Wilssa EsserAyomi Domenica Dias in Power Alley (Levante)
POWER ALLEY (Cert. TBC) isn’t just another film about the problems facing a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Its main concern is how groups of people can unite to transgress state laws that are, to their minds, oppressive. The original Brazilian title is Levante, meaning an uprising. (Power Alley is the English name that the director Lillah Halla gives to her cast and crew and, by extension, to those who brave arrest in the name of freedom.)
As a crucial volleyball championship beckons, the team’s star player, Sofia (Ayomi Domenica Dias), 17, is seeking a termination, which is a criminal act in Brazil. She becomes the target of a huge and powerful Evangelical movement bent on stopping this. The film was inspired by the stories and experiences of people interviewed, including female cast and crew members, who work collectively, tirelessly, clandestinely, despite the danger, to provide assistance in such situations.
While there are some token nods to pro-life arguments — for instance, the gynaecologist telling Sofia that the baby already has eyelids — the film makes its position clear without ever examining other viewpoints. It is not even as if the anti-abortion legislation remains an unpopular decree imposed from on high. All too obvious in the film is the opposition to this medical procedure by a substantial body of public opinion. Hence the scene when the volleyball players are violently castigated for fielding Sofia, whose abortion has been named and shamed.
The sports-team motif figures prominently. “We’re in this together,” they say. The same goes for the parallel drawn between society and bees. Collectively, they work for the common good, but, when they decide to swarm, things can get nasty for those who get in their way. Sadly, Power Alley is hampered by choosing abortion with which to contest Brazil’s political culture. If one is making a tract for its times, there are several other targets less morally divisive for which there is significant consensus.