Conclave Film Review

Conclave is one portrayal of the world’s oldest and most secretive election process. German-born director Edward Berger scooped the BAFTA awards, including best picture, for his cinematic portrayal of the 2016 novel by British writer Robert Harris.

 

Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is the dean of the College of Cardinals. Feeling more called to administration than prayer, Lawrence must ensure the smooth running of the election of a new pope.

Conclave generates tension through faith, mystery, caricature and gender. Cardinal Lawrence’s opening sermon, connecting faith with doubt rather than certainty, unsettles the 20 cardinals.

As the cardinals are sealed cum clave (Latin for “with a key”), mystery surrounds the recent decisions and final meetings held by the Pope.  What did the Pope say to Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow)? What might the Secretary of State (Aldo Bellini) know about the sudden appearance of an extra cardinal?

 

With the doors of the Sistine Chapel locked, conservative and progressive visions of the church are argued over meals and late-night meetings. While the screenwriting is crisp, the ways in which theology is connected with geography reinforces unhelpful racial stereotypes.

 

With all outside communications forbidden, the gathered cardinals are served by sisters. Central to Conclave is Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini). Voting might happen in a chapel but her courage in the office, kitchen and corridors demonstrates how the personal can be intensely political. Her words and actions are a reminder of the words and actions of the women who gathered in locked rooms around the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

Several explosive twists, external and internal, drive the plot toward a final white puff of newly elected pontifical smoke. As the conclave votes for the one who before God they think should be elected, they find themselves wrestling in real-time with religious responses to terror and the embodied nature of the call to ministry.

 

What is intriguing is how Conclave reaches for tradition. How the church might respond to terror can be guided by its history of presence in places of grief and pain. How the church understands the grace of call can be understood through the processes of ordination for mission and ministry.

Hence, what emerges through Conclave is not only a well-crafted and finely acted plot but a caring portrayal of a living tradition. The cardinals chant the ancient Veni Creator Spiritus hymn as they enter the Sistine Chapel. The middle verse affirms God’s work in human fragility.

Thy light to every thought impart
And shed Thy love in every heart;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

 

Conclave might be a fine work of cinematic fiction, yet it invites a quiet trust in the Spirit’s gifts. Amid doubt, despite politics, in the face of stereotypes, the Spirit rests on human bodies and works through human activity.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of "First Expressions" (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz