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Faith and belief are perhaps two of the hardest ideas to express intelligently on film; get it wrong and you have something awkward and preachy or simply fail to examine the subject, or perhaps worst of all deeply offend those who hold their faith dear. Therefore, to make what is essentially a comedy of manners about the man chosen as Pope (Michel Piccoli) suddenly deciding he cannot handle the responsibility is automatically in extremely difficult territory with little room to manoeuvre. As it balances itself on the tightrope between the varying positions that would alienate it from its audiences, can it still work?
Perhaps the first thing to note about the film is that despite its subject of a Pope having problems with his allotted role it is a film that remains incredibly respectful to the catholic faith. For a start the film never sees the Pope troubled by the question 'Is there a God?'; it’s a matter instead of ‘God seeing traits within him he does not have’ and thus being unable to fulfil his role. All of which is handled very well in a calm, intelligent and very human manner, the character coming through clearly and his horror at his situation seems perfectly understandable. There’s also discussion of how to resolve this with a psychiatrist (Nanni Moretti, also writer director) being brought in to try and help him overcome his sudden fear but being unable to use full psychoanalysis to help as it goes against church dogma. A subject matter not dealt with quite as well with this particular subplot working better as comedy rather than anything else. Yet beneath all this there is another problem, in that although it handles the tightrope of faith onscreen well it does not strive out and tackle its subject matter with real depth and never feels like its fully investigating its themes so that they have little emotional or intellectual impact upon the viewer which is a real shame.
The other question the film raises is can theology be funny without offending, and it seems it can. There are lots of jokes with the infighting between cardinals behind closed doors as they discuss various subjects. Yet at the same time it is very clear that they poke at individuals and the not the organisation of the church itself and even then, it remains the sort of film were everyone in whatever capacity is try to do their best. The humour that comes across may seem quite gentle and while there are no great laugh out loud moments the whole is continuously very amusing and there are more than enough good jokes to make up for it.
Overall therefore, the film does work as a very gentle and intelligent comedy that admittedly does not deal with things in perhaps the depth it could but has enough so that it works. So that whilst it’s not anything special it does keep the audience entertained throughout, and is really rather enjoyable.
We Have a Pope aired at York City Screen. For details of upcoming releases, click here
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