This article contains some spoilers, so please read with caution.
On the last day of 2019, when the current Pope Francis appeared at the Vatican to celebrate the cross-Chinese New Year's Eve, he was held tightly by a believer and his face was displeased, and then he unceremoniously patted the believer's hand, and for a time after the rapid spread of social networks, the "impatient pope" made headlines around the world. In a speech on the Catholic holiday "World Day of Peace" the next day, the Pope immediately apologized publicly for his actions the day before: "Love makes us patient. Many times we even lose patience and I apologize for yesterday's bad example. ”
This may be just the last dramatic scene of 2019, but to some extent it has given the world a glimpse of the human side of the Pope as God's representative on earth. The 266th Pope in Catholic history, on his birthday on December 17 last year, announced the repeal of the Pontifical secret of sexual assault, which means that in the future the Church can no longer use the statute of secrecy as an excuse to cover up the crimes of the clergy. Three days later, on December 20, Netflix's film about how the two popes achieved a transfer of power in 2013 was officially launched.
Compared with "The Irishman" or "Marriage Story", this Netflix'snother awards season focus film is not "selling" in all aspects, and Brazilian director Fernando Merrills, although he is already one of the most well-known contemporary Brazilian directors, still lacks some weight compared to legends such as Martin Scorsese.
In the cast section, Anthony Hopkins' partnership with Jonathan Pres is enough to compete with De Niro, Pacino and Joe Pesci, but for the new generation of audiences, the appeal of Marvel's "Black Widow" and Star Wars "Cairo" is obviously significantly higher. More crucially, from the title alone, the film "The Succession of the Pope" must be closely related to Catholic culture, a religion that still has more than a billion followers around the world today, but in the last moments of the second decade of the 21st century, when common sense is lacking and faith collapses, how many people are willing to watch and listen to the two old drama bones talk about religion and belief, divinity and humanity do need to be questioned.
After watching these three works in succession in a month's time, I personally feel that "The Succession of the Pope" has the most precious and brisk texture of the awards season. Perhaps this is exactly what director Fernando Merrills pursues or presents as much as possible, with a pseudo-documentary approach, the occasional gag in the dialogue between the two popes, and the use of a World Cup final as a closing of the film, just when everyone thinks that the film is about divinity, the film is always showing the human side of these two highest priests in the real world.
Succession of the Pope revolves around the astonishing act of the former Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 – resigning from the Pope and the election of the first bishop from outside Europe to be the new Pope Francis.
The story itself is indeed full of drama, although history is not without precedent for the pope's resignation, but the last time this happened is more than 600 years ago, on the other hand, after entering the new millennium, the Catholic Church has also caused dissatisfaction among believers because of its return to conservatism and tradition, and the continuous pedophile scandal has made the Vatican even more hostile, and the Pope himself has naturally become the target of public criticism.
The arrest of The police in May 2012 by The arrest of Pope Benedict XVI's personal attendant, Paul Gabrielle, has intensified criticism of the Vatican's power struggle and corruption in the Holy See. A year later, Benedict XVI announced that he was no longer suitable for the heavy daily clerical work because he felt that his energy was gradually declining, and he could no longer take on the heavy responsibilities entrusted by God, so he chose to abdicate voluntarily. If supporters and opponents disagreed with the success or failure of Benedict XVI's eight-year term, the decision to voluntarily abdicate was unanimously affirmed by believers and even secular society.
For unbelievers or audiences unfamiliar with Catholic history, in The Succession of the Pope, the director continues to enrich the story using news clips from that year as background material. The focus of the film is in fact not the gripping cardinal election behind closed doors, but the perspective on the language and spiritual exchange of the two generations of popes, and it is easy to think that Benedict XVI is the so-called spokesman for conservative power, and the Argentine-born Bishop Berguelio is a typical representative of progressivism.
Judging from today's evaluation, such a conclusion is difficult to say biased, after all, Benedict XVI is indeed known for his conservatism, and the film also indirectly shows Benedict XVI's return to conservatism and tradition, such as his critical attitude towards relativism, not to mention his adherence to tradition on issues such as condoms, homosexuality, and female clergy, highlighting the disconnect between the Catholic Church and today's rapidly changing society. After taking office, he also worked hard not only to push the Catholic Church back to traditional catechism, but also formally, to restore some of the papal costumes that had no longer been used.
Even as pope and at the head of the historic Catholic Church, this conservatism and tradition, which is completely at odds with 21st-century progressivism, has exposed Benedict XVI to constant criticism.
Bishop Bergoglio, who later became the current Pope, appeared much more progressive on the broader political spectrum, with even some radical elements mixed in. The film begins with a show of how, as a bishop, he would still go to the lower classes to preach, care for the poor underclass, criticize the capitalist economic system, and constantly criticize the church's inaction in the case of pedophilia and the pope's conservative attitude.
At the beginning of the film, in the 2005 election, the bishop from Argentina had already become a representative of progressiveism in the Holy See, but his influence at that time could not be compared with Benedict XVI, who had been at the center of the Holy See's power for many years.
In such a film about the power change that affects the billions of Catholics around the world, the director focuses on the human side of the two popes, and in the conversation between Benedict XVI and Bishop Bergelio, the pedometer that reminds the former to move at any time occasionally becomes a noise that interrupts the conversation between the two, while the latter is a typical Argentine fan, even in the Holy See, who can't forget to watch a game after dinner.
At the same time, the director did not completely give up the imagination of divinity, Bishop Berglio in Argentina constantly wrote letters to the Pope hoping to resign from the bishopship, seeing that there was no reply, he decided to fly to the Vatican to ask for resignation in person, but after he bought a ticket, he accidentally received a letter from the Holy See, and the Pope himself invited him to talk.
This clever foreshadowing hidden in the film becomes a footnote to the presence of divinity throughout the work, just as the young bishop of Berguelio had decided to start a family in secular society, but passing by the church on his way to propose completely changed his life.
In the end, a film about the transfer of power, the most understatement is the power as a pope. Because this is not the conspiracy and bloody power struggle in secular society, in a sense, the pope, as the leader of the universal Catholic Church and the head of state of the Vatican City, represents a religious, historical, and cultural significance far more than the traditional political power itself.
This is precisely the core of the film's focus, the two popes in a sense represent what kind of attitude and thinking the Catholic Church with a thousand years of history should have in the current modern society.
The conservative side of Benedict XVI's tenure as Pope has been mentioned earlier, but even if we don't know that this person has only watched the film "Succession of the Pope", can we really say that the pope who is willing to listen to the opponents and make the amazing move of voluntarily abdicating is a stubborn conservative?
The Church, which has undergone millennia of social change and historical change, is clearly more qualified than any regime or ideology to stick to its traditional side, and the position of pope is itself a lifelong system and there is no mechanism for recall, and Benedict XVI has no problem even if it allows the eight sides to stand still. Although he could not agree with Bishop Berguelio's opinions about monasticism, about the poor, about economic policy, about all aspects of the immigration system, Benedict XVI chose to listen, and his heart may still be conservative, but he made the actions that were most likely to achieve progress.
The film also continues to contrast and echo this seemingly contradictory at the text level, in which Benedict XVI accuses the bishop of embracing liberalism too much: "You have compromised", and the bishop responds: "I have changed". And in the end, when Benedict XVI finally said his intention to resign as pope, the shocked bishop naturally used the pope's set of sayings: "You have compromised", but Benedict XVI smiled and said: "No, I have changed (no. i have changed）”。 The dialogue is almost identical, and the identity of the expressor is completely reversed, and at this moment both sides are listening and changing at the same time.
While everyone rejoices in the enlightenment of the new Pope Francis, the film "The Succession of the Pope" presents the great changes that can be brought about when the conservatives have the determination and courage in a completely unexpected way, and it is in this way that at the last moment of the film, Benedict XVI walks into the Sistine Chapel and is surrounded by believers.
Many critics have blamed the film's rough texture on its origins in Netflix, apparently misunderstanding director Fernando Merrills' hard work and Netflix's level of engagement (the Sistine Chapel in the film is a complete one-to-one replica), and the director also mentioned in the recent Hollywood Reporter Director's Roundtable that when he saw the script, he wondered how he could make such a story of two elderly people talking dramatically.
The pseudo-documentary method that finally chooses to use a lot of handheld lenses is undoubtedly in the service of creating a sense of drama, and the still-water performances of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pres, two old dramas, also maximize the personal charm of the two characters, and the powerful persuasiveness of the characters themselves is far more powerful than deliberately creating too intense dramatic conflicts.
In July 2013, when Pope Francis visited Brazil and was asked about homosexuality, he replied: "If someone is gay and can pursue God with kindness, what qualifications do I have?" In the past, when the Pope was still a bishop, he explicitly opposed the legalization of gay marriage, and the abolition of the "Apostolic Secrecy Code" for sexual assault was seen as a major reform. Pope Francis needs to constantly practice his convictions and keep Catholic doctrines spreading in real society, while he bears the burden of rebuilding trust, after all, only by tearing down the walls of the past that have stretched between the Holy See and the general public can the bridges of communication be rebuilt.
Referral Index: Very recommended.