We Have a Pope (2011)
(Habemus papam)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Nanni Moretti
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Nanni Moretti
Synopsis:
After the funeral of the last pontiff the papal enclave elects an outsider to the role, but he suffers a nervous breakdown before his identity can be revealed to the faithful. Taken out incognito to speak with a psychiatrist he slips his minders and wanders around Rome in search of his forgotten past.
Review:
A curious premise for a film that then surprises us with the course it takes - this is no two-hander as Moretti's psychologist reintroduces his patient to the real life. Indeed, the director as actor, aggressively stealing each of his scenes, is sidelined as a prisoner of the Vatican, where he accordingly takes over the lives of the similarly secluded cardinals with an improvised volleyball tournament (an unnecessarily protracted sequence). Instead what we appear to have is a 'state of the nation'-style Moretti meditation on the impossible role of the prelate, a man chosen by a company of equals desperate to follow rather than lead. The leads all acquit themselves admirably and the film alternately amuses and saddens, culminating in its shattering non-ending.
(Habemus papam)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Nanni Moretti
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Nanni Moretti
Synopsis:
After the funeral of the last pontiff the papal enclave elects an outsider to the role, but he suffers a nervous breakdown before his identity can be revealed to the faithful. Taken out incognito to speak with a psychiatrist he slips his minders and wanders around Rome in search of his forgotten past.
Review:
A curious premise for a film that then surprises us with the course it takes - this is no two-hander as Moretti's psychologist reintroduces his patient to the real life. Indeed, the director as actor, aggressively stealing each of his scenes, is sidelined as a prisoner of the Vatican, where he accordingly takes over the lives of the similarly secluded cardinals with an improvised volleyball tournament (an unnecessarily protracted sequence). Instead what we appear to have is a 'state of the nation'-style Moretti meditation on the impossible role of the prelate, a man chosen by a company of equals desperate to follow rather than lead. The leads all acquit themselves admirably and the film alternately amuses and saddens, culminating in its shattering non-ending.
(Habemus papam)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Nanni Moretti
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Nanni Moretti
Synopsis:
After the funeral of the last pontiff the papal enclave elects an outsider to the role, but he suffers a nervous breakdown before his identity can be revealed to the faithful. Taken out incognito to speak with a psychiatrist he slips his minders and wanders around Rome in search of his forgotten past.
Review:
A curious premise for a film that then surprises us with the course it takes - this is no two-hander as Moretti's psychologist reintroduces his patient to the real life. Indeed, the director as actor, aggressively stealing each of his scenes, is sidelined as a prisoner of the Vatican, where he accordingly takes over the lives of the similarly secluded cardinals with an improvised volleyball tournament (an unnecessarily protracted sequence). Instead what we appear to have is a 'state of the nation'-style Moretti meditation on the impossible role of the prelate, a man chosen by a company of equals desperate to follow rather than lead. The leads all acquit themselves admirably and the film alternately amuses and saddens, culminating in its shattering non-ending.