The Young Pope & The New Pope

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Young Pope & The New Pope

#151 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Mar 19, 2020 6:10 pm

I enjoy how Sorrentino is unapologetically flaunting his radical spiritual process despite it being so ineffable that it can come about as messy and incomprehensible, so I'll come back for more if that's the yarn he's spinning. I'm not a huge fan of his work overall, which can often feel empty, but even if this is superfluous (which it is, the first film is more than 'enough' of an exploration as it's more profound than anything I've ever seen on the subject- including my very personal sacred cow Diary of a Country Priest) the ambiguity here is a strength to reflect our own convoluted evolution of belief and comprehension of mysterious emotional truths, instead of feeling hallow like the others. The sequel is undoubtedly a strange execution but it's perfectly suited for where we could possibly go from the first film.
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I've been thinking a lot about Lenny's explanation for the grieving mother about smoking, that "it's right." He's so definitively confident about this ability to indulge in reprieve to go far as to declare it as valid with supremacy. I think this represents that wiggle room we have, however small, to be flexible against whatever is "right" or "wrong" by God, or whatever higher power or conscience we have or believe in. It's the same wiggle room Lenny affords himself against the grain of the strictness of his own principles to allow for growth in the first film, and regardless of how wide the range of this flexibility is objectively or subjectively, it exists. And even if the specificity of the degree of agency is left to mystery, it's so wonderful to know definitively that it exists. That is perhaps the love of God.

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