Under the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals have been sequestered, following the passing of the Pope. We sit in with them and watch them stir, as some take up electioneering, and gossip pours from their mouths, as they democratically determine who should take the papacy. The cardinals stay under the Vatican fort’s chapel, replicated on a sound stage in Cinecittà, Italy, ordained with precise details from Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement, computer-generated across the ceiling, to the long darkened hallways, to the gorgeous historic windows where the light cascades in from the heavenly kingdom. As the concealed congregation of cardinals determine the future of the Catholic Church, some cunning Machiavellian power plays are underway.
The papal conclave converge and try to diplomatically determine who would best advocate for the church’s doctrine? Who decides who is most holy and pious? The cardinals do. They are flawed. They are embroiled in controversies. There is some spreading gossip about the last conversations had with the recently deceased pope. Foul play in the papacy leads to a bottled-up pressure cooker, where the cardinals become consciously conspiratorial.
At the center of it all is Cardinal Lawrence (a preternaturally perfect Ralph Fiennes), who is organizing the papal conclave. He has a hell of a job. In-fighting begins from the jump. Cardinals make hard cases for themselves but especially, as it goes in politics, against their opponents. Someone asks whether this is the best they can do, choosing between the least of all evils — may the audience sigh as deeply as they need to.
Apply whatever political framing you would like to this story. It turns out this time the center does hold as Director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front (2019) — call this All Quiet in the Vatican Fort) approaches the material (written by Peter Straughan based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris) with delicacy and patient grace. Edward Berger lets it all breathe. The great ensemble of actors do not just espouse dialogue, they have moments of resignation, doubt, and silent reflection. There are scenes where they examine an object and we enter the interior spaces of their minds. There are breathing points, mapped all over the movie, which direct the audience to reflect, to pull back and observe. Within these observational lapses of action, the real movie takes place, the novelistic inside story of the conclave and the shifting candidature of the contending cardinals.
Underscoring the spatially ornate Roman-Gothic spaces are Volker Bertlemann’s spacious copositions, these deliberately designed piano melodies, clashing cues, occasionally ostentatious and flaring cuts of musical whirlwinds. The magisterial music so boldly fits right into the scheme of Stéphane Fontaine’s work as director of photography, his visual compositions rich in color-coded focal points, that draw our eyes across the screen, the collected audiovisual design creates a tapestry of feeling that’s at once baroque and sacred.
Will the church hold the progressive line or regress into the past? That is the real conflict at the heart of Conclave, wherein the story richly expands so — while you can make political parallels — the specificity is the point. Imagine the feeling Catholic art stirs inside you: something commanding authority, perhaps respect or disdain, powerful and bold-faced, designed to captivate and inspire awe; that’s also how Conclave feels. This year, the contending awards hopefuls seem to be too commercial or not commercial enough, but Conclave is that sweet middle-ground, a film so rich and full of substance, it would make the perfect choice. When the Academy sequesters themselves and considers the year’s screeners, the name Conclave ought to be written across every single ballot. We cannot agree about who to elect but maybe we can agree that political processes invigorate us and inspire us to fight for the right cause. This year, Conclave is the right cause.