"The New Pope" continues the style of "The Young Pope", with stream-of-consciousness dialogues, avant-garde music styles, and art-like color palette. Each frame is like a famous Renaissance religious painting. I think many people are looking forward to Qiu Hua's participation in "The New Pope" again, but after watching "The New Pope", they feel as if they have been deceived. Qiu Hua has been lying for six episodes, and the return after two years is only Three episodes appeared? But I think this arrangement makes sense. "The New Pope" is actually a continuation of "The Young Pope". The deep meaning that the director really wants to express is answered in "The New Pope", and it is arranged for each character. Reasonable ending. Qiu Hua's participation is only to serve the plot to express the true core of this work.
Many lines in "The New Pope" have deep meanings and are worth thinking about, but after watching the complete episode, I was most impressed with "Idolatry is the prelude to war", which appeared in the first episode. It is a line spoken by the ambassador of the Holy See to the Vatican Church Cardinal Voilo to propose that a new pope be re-elected to replace the comatose Pope Pius XIII. I think from this sentence, director Sorrentino began to lay out the whole plot until the final plot developed to the climax and ended in the last episode.
"Idol worship is the prelude to war." Worship is actually a kind of love, a kind of fanatical and extreme love. The fanatical believers headed by the woman in red are super admirers of Pius XIII. They have been staying outside the Venice hospital waiting for Pius XIII to wake up. Faith in their eyes is to believe in Pius XIII, because he brought miracles and he was a true saint. Why they began to follow Pius XIII and why they were so fanatical and extreme, director Sorrentino did not explain, but he used Esther's experience to show the possible life trajectory and psychological change of the fanatical believers.
In "The Young Pope", the director also used a lot of plots to shape the character of Esther. Esther was a devout believer and was the only one who followed Lenny when he first became Pope and addressed the congregation without being understood. Esther's piety moved Pius XIII, he prayed for this poor infertile woman, and finally a miracle came, Esther actually conceived and gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby boy. Esther in "The Young Pope" is not a fanatical believer of Pius XIII, she is just a devout believer. But in "The New Pope" Esther's experiences changed the way she believed and loved. Abandoned by her husband and pimped by a new man, Esther sold her body for a living to comfort the disabled son of a wealthy lawyer. Sadly, in the end, Esther fell in love with the disabled son, But it was brutally dismantled by lawyers. The lawyer said something profound to Esther "Sex has no value because it's ephemeral, but love doesn't, and love is dangerous because it's future-oriented." Yeah, whether it's fanatical Love or tender love, extreme love or restrained love, they all face the future, but this future is the opposite. Gentle and restrained love has a bright and long-term future, but fervent and extreme love brings a future of harm and destruction.
Esther thought she was abandoned by everyone, even Pope Pius XIII, who had given her miracles, abandoned her, so her love began to deteriorate and go to extremes. She joined those fanatical believers who did not hesitate to plan a horrific event in order to get Pius XIII back on the altar. Ironically, this horrific event hurt Pius XIII's favorite child. Pius XIII never compromised on the issue of children, so his love also influenced his judgment, which eventually resulted in the death of a priest. "The New Pope" introduced the Islamic terrorist organization Caliph from the first episode, but in the end it was the idolatry of its own followers that caused this bloodshed. Idol worship is indeed a war, and the enemy of this war is not from from the outside but from the inside.
From "The Young Pope" to "The New Pope", I think it is more like the growth history of Pius XIII. Lenny, who became the Pope, is actually constantly exploring what is the right church and how to be a good one. Pope.
The middle way. It applies to both the Church and the Pope. In fact, there is another contrast between The Young Pope and The New Pope. In "The Young Pope" Pius XIII prayed to the Virgin, and a miracle came to Esther, but in "The New Pope" this miracle did not come to the doctor's family again. But the doctor and his wife were moved by Lennie kneeling in front of the poor child's bed and praying for him to feel his pain. At that moment, his devout prayers and his heart to share the suffering with the doctor family were received by the doctor family. The doctor family was no longer indulging in the pain of the child who suffered from the pain. They gave birth to another healthy and beautiful child. The story has a good ending. Relying on miracles alone to maintain faith makes it illusory and extreme. Like the Son of Jesus, his holiness is not his ability to perform miracles but his willingness to suffer with those who suffer. So Lenny's awakening is to give a future to the love of those fanatical believers who have been misled by his miracles, and also to answer the question that he has always puzzled as a pope, how to become a real pope.
In the end, neither Lenny nor John is the Pope anymore. Lenny is a very divinity person. His personal color is too strong and even exceeds the role of the whole church. This kind of pope is destined to bring idolatry and is not conducive to the development of the whole church. In the end, his holy, beautiful and artistic exit is really true. It is very moving, that grown Lenny finally returned to the arms of the Virgin. And John is a fragile person. Even if he is well versed in the compromises of the church, it is difficult for someone who cannot properly handle personal pain to become a good pope. He found love and a home in the secular world, which is a good ending. .
Finally, the last speech of Pope Pius XIII in the Vatican Square came to an end. "We always talk about love, but compared to other people I don't know how to define love, we always talk about beauty, but compared to others, I don't know how to accept beauty, For this I seek your forgiveness, please, forgive me. History repeats itself when we confuse love with madness, beauty with ecstasy, madness and ecstasy once again proven irresistible temptations, but their end It will always lead to unrighteous death like in Ventotene, this time it is an upright and innocent pastor who is looking for a happy life surrounded by meekness, kindness, gentleness and love, we have to learn to stand our ground in the world The church must deliberately open its heart to reasonable love in order to fight off deformed love, which John Paul III humbly called a compromise. It took me the past few days to understand that this is not the middle, it's the only way."
No matter whether the preceding attributive is good or bad, the core of love is love. We must always stay awake and not let love be a weapon for others to control their emotions, because that is destined to lead to a miserable future.
In fact, apart from the big development clues, this drama still has a lot to think about. I am most interested in the discussion of whether the Bible needs to be updated.
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