Filmography
Mar. 27th, 2013 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyWe Have A Pope
I meant to watch this during Conclave, but didn't quite manage it. However, I did manage to watch it shortly afterwards, and I think I may have unintentionally started a new electing-the-Pope custom at Case Del Me. This is an Italian film about what happens when a man is chosen as Pope who actually isn't up to it. At the crucial going out on to the balcony moment, he bottles - and the subsequent film explores what happens next, including a psychotherapist getting trapped inside the Conclave and organising the cardinals into a round robin tournament of volleyball, and the Pope-elect going on the run for a couple of days, unbeknownst to anyone but a very, very panicked member of the press office.
It is a beautiful film - whimsical, emotionally connected, strange and surreal, but dealing with serious questions of faith and vocation, and how one deals psychologically with something like the Papacy being thrown at you. It's very gentle, and very kind to those it depicts - there are no villains, just people trying to live faithfully in trying situations. The pope's own experiences of working out what he is troubled by are also beautiful, and there are moments of cinematic absurdity and composition which made me both tear up and burst out laughing. This is worth seeing, regardless of your position on faith - it's a lovely meditation on human integrity and the ultimate joy and love that lies at the base of human existence.
I meant to watch this during Conclave, but didn't quite manage it. However, I did manage to watch it shortly afterwards, and I think I may have unintentionally started a new electing-the-Pope custom at Case Del Me. This is an Italian film about what happens when a man is chosen as Pope who actually isn't up to it. At the crucial going out on to the balcony moment, he bottles - and the subsequent film explores what happens next, including a psychotherapist getting trapped inside the Conclave and organising the cardinals into a round robin tournament of volleyball, and the Pope-elect going on the run for a couple of days, unbeknownst to anyone but a very, very panicked member of the press office.
It is a beautiful film - whimsical, emotionally connected, strange and surreal, but dealing with serious questions of faith and vocation, and how one deals psychologically with something like the Papacy being thrown at you. It's very gentle, and very kind to those it depicts - there are no villains, just people trying to live faithfully in trying situations. The pope's own experiences of working out what he is troubled by are also beautiful, and there are moments of cinematic absurdity and composition which made me both tear up and burst out laughing. This is worth seeing, regardless of your position on faith - it's a lovely meditation on human integrity and the ultimate joy and love that lies at the base of human existence.
