MOVIE GUIDE: CONCLAVE (2024)
“…The Church is not the past. It is what we do next…”
This is an exquisite “Bocatto Di Cardinale”. A film that takes all the elements of drama and suspense inside the Vatican walls during one of the most secretive and important moments for the Catholic Church: the election of a Pope. Deacon Lawrence (an impressive Ralph Fiennes) is the priest in charge of all the details and intricacies for the meeting behind closed doors of 103 Cardinals whose main task is to select the name for the new spiritual leader of, roughly, 1 billion followers around the world. That meeting, obviously, is not a stroll in the park. It is filled with intrigues, rivalry, divisions and conspiracies. What director Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front) accomplishes along with DP Stephane Fountain is a masterful piece of a”film noir” but in color. Shadows and low lights perfectly blended with the most crisp purples, reds, black and whites from the Cardinals soutanes inside pristine clean spaces filled with the blue habits from the nuns assisting on the meeting. Certainly not an easy feat because the idea is not to overrun the storytelling with a visual extravaganza but to keep the attention on a suspense that keeps building up to its very last minute. A story where chiaroscuro is the perfect reflection of the soul of those deciding the matters of the Faith.
“…The Church is not the past. It is what we do next…”
Available on Peacock
