"This is the story of two men." Dramatic pause. "Two men to whom destiny, or causality, became popes ... At the same time . " Fernando Meirelles (São Paulo, 1955) speaks like the one recited by a monologue. Very aware of the reaction of the audience, attentive to the not so subtle provocation of his words. Let's say it is expressed in the same record as your movie, The Two Potatoes; a film that reconstructs the most holy of encounters from the most pagan of corners: a couple of pontiffs who discuss football, who dance, who are ashamed of their past and who, if necessary, even remain completely alone, abandoned, without faith.
"My idea," says the director as a preface, "was never to make a religious film or about religion as an argument. It was about telling how the Vatican works and the institution of the Church from within. And that is political » . And, indeed, and to clear up doubts, the Brazilian director who acquires relevance in the world panorama with Ciudad de Dios (2002) confesses without the slightest hint of doubt his rendered admiration for the current pope, the Argentine, who stays, the one who embodies between tenderness and perfection Jonathan Pryce . «Honestly, I think there are currently few figures as relevant and necessary as Bergoglio. In a world where inequality is the most damaging consequence of the current global economic system, where the refugee crisis has become the first problem and where people like Trump in the United States, Bolsonaro in my country and the extreme right in all of Europe are they are doing with power, a figure like his is necessary. And here it is convenient to side with the Catholic Church. In the face of the obscurantism of the evangelist churches, the Vatican has been discovered as a necessary moral counterweight, ”he says in a lit praise of the papacy and, let's admit it, the ultimate meaning of his film.
From the hand of a more than brilliant script by Anthony McCarten (also responsible for The Darkest Hour or Bohemian Rhapsody) , The two popes place the two personalities facing each other and facing themselves (including the shadows of each past one of them: the silence perhaps an accomplice of one in the brutal Argentine dictatorship and the Nazi affiliation of the other). «The first time I read the script, it seemed that one was the good one, the one that opened the Church in the face of pedophilia scandals, and the other was the bad one. And that obviously is not so. Benedict belongs to the tradition of the Church connected with God and not with society. I may disagree, but I understand your point of view, ”he says. Much of the film, in fact, is resolved at the moment when Razintger, the pope also masterfully played by Anthony Hopkins , discovers the grace of politics. And even football. What if the best way to serve the governing institution is to stop doing it? the tape wonders at the same time that it endorses Plato's appointment, which he recognizes as the main virtue of a leader who does not want to be.
The German loves classical music, his only good joke is the recognition of his inability to make jokes and, when he wants no one to know the seriousness of his words, he speaks in Latin. The Argentine, on the other hand, knows about the usefulness of a joke on time, dances tangos whenever he has occasion, hates using a language other than his own and his favorite song is Dancing queen , by Abba.
"What fascinates me about Francisco is his effort to build bridges, not walls," insists Meirelles. "That," he continues, "and its ease in connecting with people. He's a dad who has a lot of pop star and that's good. Or it is at a time like the current one where everything is lived with absolute fanaticism either in religion, in politics or even in football. The speaker speaks a believer "in his own way." He tells that as a child he frequented the Church every Sunday. Until he stopped. «I recognize myself in the definition of agnostic and I believe that religion rather than fulfilling a social function responds to an eternal motivation. I am getting closer to believing that God is nature itself. And what do you think about the relationship with that nature of the current government of your country? «It is an absolute disaster. I am angry to think that Brazil has been precisely the country that has ruined the resolution of the Climate Summit. It is outrageous, ”he concludes between resounding and more than just resounding. Pause. Dramatic
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