by @Adingcold
ojovivo
Stranger Things
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

PR's Tumblrdome

Origami Around
will byers stan first human second
we're not kids anymore.

No title available
RMH
KIROKAZE

Product Placement

blake kathryn
official daine visual archive
Claire Keane
No title available
𓃗

if i look back, i am lost
untitled
YOU ARE THE REASON

izzy's playlists!
seen from Malaysia

seen from Ireland

seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from United Kingdom

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Norway
seen from Germany
seen from United States

seen from Indonesia
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from Malaysia

seen from Spain

seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Lithuania
@pepperinthebook
by @Adingcold
Also cannot get over Carlos Diehz(Vincent Benítez)'s acting. The way he radiates inner strength and calm. The genuine curiosity in his eyes when asks looks at Lawrence and asks "why?". The way he portrays someone with a sharp mind, and quiet determination, not because they're full of themselves, but because they simply act in the way they think they should. The childlike-wonder at the world, despite having witnessed its brutality, with its brutality. How did he bring all that to a character that didn't have that many lines on screen??? "who is it you think we're fighting?" Like dammmnnnn did he make every second count
Another thing I love is how everytime Lawrence and Benítez are on screen together, Lawrence somehow ends up telling Benítez things you can tell he never expected to share with someone outside of his circle of confidants, et encore. His difficulties with prayer when they walk together, his views on Tremblay, his outburst "I don't want your vote!". He always looks surprised at himself afterwards, like he can't quite comprehend where it came from. And it's like, that's just the effect Benítez has on people. Because he watches, and most of all, he listens so deeply it's disarming.
Which is also how he ends up defeating Tedesco, whose rather empty words falter when faced with someone who listens closely and hears how untethered to reality they sound.
He makes such a fine pope.
My favourite thing about Conclave (2024) is that the conclave and its final result were all planned by the previous pope. The man set up a chess game, placed the right people on the board in the right places and they acted exactly as he expected of them. This is why he didn't let Lawrence resign and made those other moves. And in the end his carefully positioned, hidden pawn reached the other side of the board and transformed into a queen.
The previous pope won that last chess game while being dead. He was a true mastermind. "Eight moves ahead". Loved it.
Carlos Diehz really is that bitch. Starts acting at fifty years old when his youngest kid moves out of the house, does a couple of student films and then gets cast in possibly the best film of the year alongside some of the best actors alive and at no point is he outmatched or out of his depth. we stan
long live the pope.
Inspired by Diego Velázquez’s “Pope Innocent X” & Francis Bacon’s “Seated Figure” studies.
having re-watched Conclave last night I really admired the late Pope's plan ("he was 8 moves ahead of me", said Bellini about them playing chess). Yes, he planned Adeyemi and Tremblay's downfall, but his knowledge of the character of those around him is astonishing.
the fact that he knew Lawrence would find the documents (which meant he would have to break the seals and go through his things), that Benítez would conquer everyone at the Conclave on the sheer strength of his personality and courage, that Tedesco would commit a massive blunder and reveal himself as the fascist he is, and that Bellini would be a disappointment....just. Machiavellian levels of planning. I want a movie about him.
Conclave things that have stuck with me most after several watches and reading the book for comparison (I've mentioned some of this in other posts):
When Bellini berates Lawrence about his "precious doubts", he glances around first to make sure no one is going to hear. He's pissed off, but he knows the danger of rumour, and he doesn't want to get Lawrence hurt. It's such a tender little moment
Throughout the film, we get whispering and muttering, but it's never very clear what's being said. Until the end, when we can hear them all saying "Innocentius". After a discordant time of rumour and speculation, the Curia has finally united around Benitez
Lawrence's skullcap: he puts it on at the start when he needs to be professional, and tears it off after his improvised homily and the first time he sends Ray to do some investigating, as though he feels he is not worthy of his title. He's not wearing it at all when he sneaks into the Pope's room. But when he distributes the reports, it's back. He knows this is his duty
The book has a big focus on the role of the media, and we do get some mentions of that in the film (helicopters, camera flashes, etc) but it's incredibly stripped back. The film even changes some scenes to emphasise the role of rumour in such an insular place. For instance, the theatre room does not exist in the book, but in the film it provides space for Bellini's group to plot alone
The shroud over the dead Pope's face, and the ribbon and around the door, flimsy tradition contrasted with the heavy mundanity of the paramedics removing the body
The candles all around the Pope's photo, which are the same as the candle in Benitez' room
Ray letting Lawrence use his glasses to read, which has obviously happened before. I love the solid ground that Ray provides Lawrence
In the book, Tedesco is terrible at Latin despite, as in the film, demanding it be brought back. The film provides a visual standing for this with the vape. He doesn't actually want tradition, he's just using it as a veil for his bigotry
Bellini saying the Pope was "always 8 moves ahead", setting up all the Pope's machinations that appear later
Lawrence being the first person to notice when Agnes and Benitez are trying to speak to the cardinals
The nuns always working in the background. Their work is shown over and over but the film demands effort from the audience to notice, lest they become "invisible"
"the archbishop of... where? kabul?"
Hi, nobody told me Conclave has Actual INTERSEX Representation, nor that the Intersex Character is a main character who is a celebrated hero of the people in the end. And it ends so nicely. Wow.
An intersex character who is a real human being, a complex human being, not fetishized or misrepresented in any real way at all, and gets to have an amazing ending. In a pope election movie.
I dunno I just think if a seemingly innocuous film about cardinals assembling to vote in a new pope inspires memes like these it's worth a fucking watch
i need to know who those two cardinals were who voted for Benitez on day one like this bitch literally just walked in no one knows who he is or if he’s even a fraud yet so someone just saw those big beautiful brown eyes and said that’s my pope 🥰
ralph fiennes in every other scene of conclave: i want to quit my job so bad. will you please let me quit my job
everyone else: you want to be pope so bad it makes you look stupid
people on twitter arguing over whether cardinal tedesco is brat or whatever when it's really very simple. he's a reactionary fascist who i would beat to death with hammers if i met him on the street AND sergio castelillto's performance managed to out-cunt stanley tucci who was already operating at terminal levels of mother. what's not to understand?
funniest bit in Conclave by far is Cardinal Vincent Benítez, the only normal person in a 5 mile radius, getting up in a room full of Cardinals and going, "you are all petty, mean and a bit weird, and inshallah I shall not return here ever again" and 118 cardinals were like damn, he's right, we can't let him escape
Not me scrolling through the Conclave tag only to see no one talk about the deliberate positioning and framing of the women in this movie.
Pulling up this movie I completely expected to only encounter Sister Agnes as the one woman we see in the trailer, the conclave a space that has been kept from the female members of the church. Now, color me surprised when I started the movie and most of the establishing shots we got were focused on all the women working in the Vatican.
And it is such a deliberate choice, it does the film a disservice not to talk about it.
Because while Cardinal Lawrence is having his fifteenth breakdown during sequestering and Bellini finds the ambitious asshole within himself, Ray does all the leg work, and Bel---- we see the women work.
We see the kitchens, we see them cook, we see them stand aside. Most of the time when the Cardinals are conspiring it is the women who interrupt because they are busy working, walking, running errands.
And there is power in that.
I think it is very deliberate how often (and with such lingering gaze) the camera shows us the lives of the other half - partially to connect to the wider themes of the movie, on how Bellini asks for women to get more power but never thanks them, and how Benitez stumps them all by thanking the women preparing their meals when asked to say the prayer (considering his own probably tumultuous relationship to gender within the church).
But it also stands in direct opposition to a long tradition in story telling: servants don't exist. How often the heroes of a regency romance are "alone" because the two hand maidens and three maids don't really count.
Conclave doesn't do that.
It doesn't let us look away.
Between all the petty drama, the politics, and the real life consequences of the conclave, we never stop looking at the people doing all the work.
Yes, we follow the ups and downs of Lawrence and Co, but in doing so the movie reminds us again and again of the women working the kitchen.
And that was just such a powerful artistic choice in a movie about a famously misogynistic church... I loved it. And I had to talk about it.