I'm not often left curious by cinema trailers, since so much of modern blockbusters are (to put it bluntly) trash. However, I happened to catch the trailer for Edward Berger's Conclave a couple of times and after seeing it lined up for several Golden Globe nominations, I got even more curious, so decided to see it, expecting just a dose of that good old Vatican intrigue.
Spoilers Ahead.
Photo:Focus Features
The film concerns itself, as the title suggests, with the election of the new Pope. By hinting at the previous Pope's "work of a lifetime" in taking the Catholic Church into the 21st century, it leaves little room for doubt as to who the former Sacred Father is meant to represent. What follows are two hours of pretty classic Vatican intrigue, as expected, which make for a gripping thriller-type watch, but won't come as a surprise if you're vaguely familiar with recent Conclaves or the history of the Catholic Church.
I didn't expect a film about religion to bother me so much.
But it seems to me, as with Heretic, of which I wrote recently here, that the only hip way to prevent faith in art lately is by reducing it to a very base, simplistic version of itself. To see the power struggles in the Catholic Church (according to Conclave, at least), you'd think the whole religion had been invented by a five-year-old.
On the one hand, you've got the progressives who are, of course, the heroes of the movie. They're the ones who are all in favor of Vatican II, all supportive of gay, trans, and other such movements, and as one poignant scene early in the film makes clear, they even support allowing women into the Curia.
In the other corner, we've got the old, crazy conservatives, in the form of Cardinal Tedesco. While the actor is brilliant, the character is rudimentary. He is a caricature of some very real concerns, chiefly the likely downfall of the Catholic Church at the hand of all this forced inclusion.
There's a painful scene when the cardinals are informed of several terrorist attacks in Rome, at which point the old Italian Cardinal jumps from his seat and starts ranting about the (very real) dangers of inviting extremist 'refugees' on European soil. He resorts to the classic argument of -
"We tolerate Islam in our land, but they revile us in theirs. We nourish them in our homelands, but they exterminate us. How long will we tolerate this weakness?"
The Cardinal's outdated, racist stance is made all the more poignant by him speaking almost exclusively in Italian (which I loved). But it's a smart and very talented portrayal of a mere pencil-sketch. The movie, taking itself ever so seriously, rushes to appease its audience - naturally, the Cardinal is wrong and ought to be ashamed. Another Cardinal, the man who goes on to become Pope, informs us that the question isn't holding on to the past, but how well the Catholic Church can go into the future. That it needs to judge people not by creed, but on an individual basis.
And yet, you don't have to be a traditionalist Catholic to understand that without its all-male priesthood and without many of these outdated, racist, call-them-what-you-will positions, it is no longer the Catholic Church. That the Church has worked and held (tremendous) power for two thousand years thanks to, not in spite of these backwards notions.
Perhaps Conclave would have stood a better shot, had it offered an actual viable alternative to this clinging to the past, but it doesn't. What it does is elect a hermaphrodite (I shit you not) and tell us tolerance is the way forward and old fossils like Tedesco need to be ridiculed and eradicated. Except. In ridiculing a heart that holds to "the old ways", the film ridicules the overwhelming majority of Catholics worldwide. And for no other crime than finding a meaning in ritual, deity and an overwhelming sense of belonging, whereas obviously, the modern home of meaning is political extremism, consumerism and other cheap thrills.
How very gauche of these stubborn religious people to hold on to their silly, ape-like Christianity.
Much more dangerously, ridiculing the so-called racism of wanting to protect your land and your family, the film seeks to reinforce this very absurd idea that we are way too advanced to be resort to barbarism.
On an individual level, perhaps. But as groups, we've still got at least a leg in the gutter. When one side engages in a religious, racist war, it is weakness not to take appropriate measures, as Europe is finding out on its own.
You know I'm not religious, but if I still was, I would very much expect the Catholic Church to remain the Catholic Church. It seems to me a great lack of integrity on the Church's part, all this bending over backwards, pretending it's something it's not. And yes, as far as I'm concerned, it does seem to me immigrants are at an advantage here since they still have a faith they really, seriously believe in. Us in Europe, not so much (where? Macron's Paris? Berlin?). And I seem to remember faith as being one of the prerequisites of a religious war.
Personally, I try to be kind to any and every people I meet who aren't from here (and who are - it's a damn good religion, being kind). I'm courteous and smile and don't give them the stink-eye that most Romanians are prone to. But. I'm also aware of the numerous vile attacks, rapes, murders and other atrocities committed by extremists on European land (and largely silenced and glossed over by mainstream media). And as long as the price of inclusion is Europeans living in terror, then it's too high. So I, for one, was left quite unmoved by the film's nauseating insistence on inclusivity and tolerance as the way forward - for Europe or the Catholic Church.
Are these people that afraid of religion that they can't even make a serious, well thought-out movie about it anymore? By all means, criticize it, but often the best criticism relies on truth and well thought-out arguments, not sticking the old 'L' on your forehead and acting like you're the new cool kids now.
