Italy
2.5*
Director:
Nanni Moretti
Screenwriters:
Nanni Moretti
Francesco Piccolo
Federica Pontremoli
Director of Photography:
Alessandro Pesci
Running time: 102 minutes
Original title: Habemus papam
The election of a pope is nothing to be flippant about. Even for non-Catholics, the brief period of time that marks the end of one papacy and encompasses the conclave — during which a successor is chosen — and the eventual appearance of the new pope on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square piques interest like few other events.
When the College of Cardinals has chosen a new pope, by secret ballot and with all the cardinals in the running, white smoke rises from the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel. In Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope (from the Latin “Habemus papam”, the phrase spoken by the protodeacon of the College of Cardinals to announce the election of the new pope), the cardinal who is elected has a panic attack moments before he is to appear on the balcony and flees to his chambers to shun the burden the office brings.
Such anxiety is to be expected, of course, and in fact, it is normal for the elected pontiff to break down in tears upon realizing what he is about to take on, namely dominion over a billion subjects. However, in this film, the cardinal, named Melville (Michel Piccoli), is out of his depth and has such insecurity that his staff seeks out the help of a noted psychoanalyst (Moretti) to help the Holy Father through this difficult time and eventually get him to the balcony.
The rest of the film is a long wait for the big moment. While we wait, we learn very little about the mystical figure that is Cardinal Melville, though it becomes clear he would prefer to act rather than pontificate. The psychoanalyst’s hands are also tied because he cannot use the normal psychoanalytical tools in this case: Questions about Melville’s relationship with his mother, his fantasies and his sexual desires are, naturally, all strictly verboten.
When Melville loses his way in Rome and ends up on a late-night bus, mumbling to himself, we see a very human (not only vulnerable, but frail) side to him, and though he seems to be a gentle soul, the idea of him writing an encyclical is quite absurd. This man cannot be pope. He is not only emotionally and psychologically but also — and this is where the film utterly fails — intellectually ill-equipped for the papacy.
This last piece of information is problematic in light of the fact that the cardinals have spent a great deal of time with him prior to his election, but have elected him nonetheless. Whatever the viewer’s personal beliefs about the possibility of a pope elected by divine guidance, it would seem patently obvious this situation is very unlikely to occur if the cardinals had some sense of their colleague.
Unfortunately, we are not afforded any such look at the man who would be pope and cannot accurately judge whether the cardinals were mistaken or blind. Even if one believes the conclave works according to the will of God, the film remains flawed because the ultimate resolution will be deeply unsatisfactory.
The idea of being pope, of having such immense power, must leave one breathless, and thus there is ample room to empathize with dear Cardinal Melville. In a very powerful moment, during the conclave, the fear the other cardinals have that any one of them will be elected is communicated to the viewer by means of a very effective voiceover that mirrors Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asks his father to let “the cup pass from [him].”
But never again do we see the future pope ask anything of God (he thanks God for even less), and though there may be speculation he has lost his faith, the film provides too little for the viewer to assume anything; on the contrary, We Have a Pope revels in its own timorousness and defies our expectations to get any closer to Melville than the cardinals or the psychoanalyst.
The humanization of the pope is a wonderful starting point, as was Nicos Kazantzakis’ treatment of Christ in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ, for example, but no one simply gets dropped inside the College of Cardinals, much less elected pope, if he has not proved some leadership skills. Such leadership, alas, cannot be detected in the role played by Piccoli, and therefore the whole premise of the film is undermined.
This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.