Conclave is a film about faith; it explores the sins of pride and hypocrisy, the virtues of doubt and uncertainty, and the terrible psychological burdens of knowledge and truth. The cinematography perfectly complements this thematically rich subject matter. Director Edward Berger and DP Stéphane Fontaine favor tight, claustrophobic closeups that convey the rigid inflexibility of the Church’s dogma, doctrine, and traditions. The framing and blocking often place the characters at extreme angles relative to the camera, with their facial features (and, consequently, their intentions, ambitions, and allegiances) further obscured by dark, moody shadows; the shallow depth-of-field likewise distorts their surroundings—in many shots, the background is reduced to a hazy, flat, indistinct blur.
The movie’s visual language is, in short, absolutely sublime, distilling the moral complexity and ambiguity of the central conflict into delightfully concrete imagery. While it doesn’t quite rise to the level of Martin Scorsese’s meditations on Catholic guilt or Paul Schrader’s vivid nightmares of Calvinist damnation, Conclave is nevertheless a religious thriller par excellence, sure to appeal to even the most ardent skeptics.
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