I watched Conclave and my brain is buzzing about it

I watched Conclave last night and my brain is buzzing about it. I tend to steer away from religiously-themed films, including religiously themed horror movies as they tend to just fully nosedive into the world of stereotypes and tropes, and quite frankly, that’s boring. I watched Heretic after it was released and I had major issues with the film, which I’ll briefly discuss below. Heretic is another religiously themed film, but in the horror space.

Conclave was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film. Admittedly, I’ve only now seen two of those nominated films, Substance and Conclave, and sorry horror crowd, Conclave is a much more superior film than Substance. I know that Anora won. I haven’t watched Anora. I don’t think I’ll watch Anora. I’ve been told that Anora is essentially a rip off of Zola (2020). Zola starred Black actors. Anora starred White actors. I enjoyed Zola and remember the viral moment in which that story was shared. You can read about Zola here.

With Conclave, I was hesitant to watch it because I just thought it was going to be another one of “those” movies. When I say “those” movies, I mean movies about marriage that show how awful marriage can be or movies about parenting that show how awful parenting can be or movies about religion that show how awful religion can be.

Narratives like that are boring.

I personally think it’s a worn out, tired trope to criticize marriage and family and children and religion with the blanket statement that these are all bad and failures and no one should pursue them. These institutions are much more complex than that, and I’d like to see a more interesting exploration of them. It’s essentially all tiring and contributing to a fracturing of community when so much of our narratives say - “people are bad.”

Alright, well, I’m over the "people are bad” trope / complaint.

Tell me something new.

Tell me something different.

Tell me how people can be good.

Tell me how life and community and relationships with each other can be complicated and messy, but beautiful. I think that’s what Conclave shows us.

In brief, Conclave tells us that we are mortal men/women. It shows us that we make mistakes, but that we can work to do better. There is a major thread in here about women and the power of women and the ending I found spectacular.

“I am what God made me,” is the defining line of the entire film, and I’ll leave it at that.

Now, my issue with Heretic is that it was this film that kept trying to poke fun and find a “gotcha” moment against those who believe in religion or faith, and I found that quite annoying. I think people should be allowed to believe what they want to believe, that people should be allowed to love who they want to love, that people should be allowed to exist how they want to exist in their bodies.

I also believe that people should not force their beliefs onto others, and that’s exactly what the lead character in Heretic did. They forced their belief of disbelief onto the Mormon missionaries he invited into his home. So, if his issue is missionaries forcing their belief, why did he invite them into his house? And essentially he executed exactly what he had issue with - someone preaching their belief / or disbelief onto another. It was so contradictory.

The lead character played by Hugh Grant essentially creates the most manufactured event in order to force the missionaries to question or renounce their faith in God. For me, the defining moment in that film is when one of the missionaries accepts this is a bad situation, and that she is likely going to die. There’s this air of glee from the man who crafted this most manipulative trap who almost expects her to say that she doesn’t believe in God, but instead - as she is hurt - she fully leans into her belief. I can’t recall exactly what she says here, but she clasps her hands in prayer and says something to the effect of ‘Thank you God for all of my trials.’ That for me was the most powerful moment of the film, because even after all of this suffering her faith still holds true and she will not allow a man, a monster, to break her into believing there is nothing but void. The very trials she endured was the very thing that validated her belief, because these bad things happening directed her to where she would find comfort - her faith.

I am not a pessimist. In fact, I steer clear of narratives that just tell us that ‘Everything is bad,’ because I refuse to believe that. I personally believe that if you fill your mind with beliefs that everything is bad - life, relationships, everything, that you will spotlight anything in your reality to validate those negative beliefs. However, if you move about life with the belief that life can be good then your mind will highlight those daily experiences that validate a life that’s good.

In Conclave, there are comments about wavering faith. There are men who have sinned. There are women who have suffered in silence, but there are women who are powerful, and if you watch the film you will find that the most powerful and innocent of them all were created as women, and well, this, our bodies and our lives should be lived as how we determine because we have free will.

Cina

-LVX