“Thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”: Conclave is a stark reminder that men of the Church are bound to respect the Scriptures, but that they fail to do so more often than we think.
After directing All Quiet on the Western Front and the more recent Patrick Melrose, Edward Berger now delivers a tense, sacred closed-door drama with unpredictable twists and turns, pitting human law against divine justice.
Ralph Fiennes gives a very sharp and subtle performance as Cardinal Lawrence, struggling with his faith but forced to follow the last wishes of the late Pope and organise the conclave, ruling the Curia like a ‘shepherd guiding his flock’ would. His task is undermined by buried scandals waiting to be unveiled, and the last-minute arrival of an unexpected Cardinal.
A cross between a thriller and a political campaign, where alliances are forged and undone, Conclave depicts a frantic and breathless race for the Holy See, in which the lines between personal ambition, the Vatican’s reputation and the well-being of the Catholic world get blurred.
Timely and highly political, Berger collides technology with tradition, offering scenes with a clever and beautifully geometric aesthetic, where the Cardinals are observed in their daily intimacy, smoking and using their electronic devices, mobile phones, computers, or vapes.
For a film that plays so brilliantly with silence, empty spaces and the mystery of closed, quiet rooms, Conclave’s sound design also stands out. Indeed, in such a hushed and stifled environment, the slightest noise becomes exaggerated, from the coffee machine to the slamming of doors, but above all, the abundant heavy breathing, which instils a sense of anxiety in the audience.
The latter is constantly reminded that they are sequestered with the Cardinals, through a range of stylistic techniques, including beautiful ‘frame within a frame’ shots that create remarkable and almost claustrophobic mise en abyme effects.
Isabella Rossellini’s great performance highlights that this is also a film intrinsically built around femininity, invisible but haunting the narrative through the furtive silhouettes of nuns and its discreet, repressed evocation in the dialogue.
In the end, Conclave reminds us that Cardinals are mere mortals, flesh and blood, not above other men. Indeed, in the very opening scene, the body of the late Pope is treated like an ordinary sack of meat, and the leading Cardinals of the Curia, barely drying their tears, declare the Holy See vacant as a herald would sound the opening of a hunt.
The most important election in the world, or a bloody battle? Wise and holy men or wild dogs gnawing on a still-warm bone? When all is said and done, the Pope is dead; long live the Pope.
“Vatican” by Pierre_Bn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.