Issue #85: Sacred Swarm🏺
Conclave + The Substance
Well I’ll be, we’re back again. That’s right — we’re still counting down to the Oscars by ticking through the Best Picture nominees. This week: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Substance.
It’s Friday, so let’s just get into it, shall we?
Zosha on Conclave
You may have heard about Conclave as a bit of a party: A bunch of bitchy cardinals gather to pick the next pope, which means gossip, and politicking, and piety by way of power struggles. There is a sense that if Conclave is a party then it got here on Oct. 25, 2024, right when the party ended (such that you could call any modern Democratic campaign in the face of Republican authoritarianism a “party,” let alone an enjoyable one).
It was a funny experience to see Conclave a good month or so before the election, where the press screening I attended chuckled softly at the notion of “Is this what we're reduced to, choosing the least worst option?” When I’d see it again a month later, a week out from the election, that line got full-on groans.
Conclave is about the papacy. This is the fundamental root of the story and its struggle. When its cardinals declare themselves “liberal” they do not mean that in the way we understand it in our politics. But it’s understandable why we’d feel like they could: Everything feels fraught and political. Cardinal Lawrence’s (Ralph Finnes) insistence that there’s a deeper good that exists outside of jockeying agendas is true, but Conclave presses us about how much it matters. It’s not so much naivete, as Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) might want to believe, so much as it’s beside the point. Do you win a game by refusing to play? Does it feel like you should?
Still, what sticks with me all these months out from those initial viewings isn’t the curveball ending. It’s a fun kisser; an eloquent twist on ideas around Catholic ideas around the body and God’s divine vision. But what stays with me is the hush of Conclave. The halo of light around cardinals in a darkened auditorium. The lingering gaze of Edward Berger’s direction on little vignettes of iPhones and a mass of cardinals moving through the stairwell. Finnes’ furrowed brow, cast up to the sky with so much unseen between him and what he wants to hear.
Memes would have you believe the movie is filled with adolescent Mean Girl backstabbing; the closest it gets is a vaping 71-year-old who is ready to steamroll anyone with his self-righteousness. I enjoy these the much as the next person. But they don’t really capture my experience of the film, a movie so purely adult in the way it wrestles with impossible impasses. What makes it so interesting to me is how it flirts with fecklessness, refusing to be a 1:1 analogy or stand-in for anything. In the era of so much Literal Horror and literal horror — that would be: horror movies that are single-mindedly direct about their analogies (and with other genres following suit), and the crushing defeat that comes with checking the headlines every morning — it’s refreshing to have a film like Conclave commit to its types as characters and let them spin out from there. Like warring tops, they bounce off each other and sometimes spin out all together. But for as much as characters are forced to come out and say an almost mechanical version of what they mean, there is so much spirit and quiet that leaves some room (for Jesus, or anything else ones want to fill in).
Ultimately Conclave stops right where it’s meant to; a steep escalation of its thoughts, with no real denouement to tie things up. There is, instead, its own sort of calm. It gives no answers, just as it doesn’t easily align with any simple politics. Instead we’re left with Cardinal Lawerence looking out the window. In a lesser film there would be a whole third act left, but Conclave wants us to sit with the questions rather than the destination. After all, what else is there to say after listening to so many people saying nothing in order to stand for something? Life goes on, even if we’re not really sure how. The party’s not over, even if it feels a little fucking dead.
Cate on The Substance
There’s not a lot to say about The Substance that hasn’t been said already. Director Coralie Fargeat’s latest feature is an ambitious examination of women, aging, and the extreme measures the former are willing to take to evade the latter. The film cannot be accused of subtlety, so generally speaking, its themes are quite legible. But while the story’s focus on the glorification of youth is its preeminent fascination, what remains most interesting to me, is the very existence of the substance itself.
For the uninitiated: Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an 80s style television fitness star whose show is unceremoniously dumped by her network on her 50th birthday. In an act of desperation, she takes “the substance,” which allows a new, better version of herself to emerge: Sue (Margaret Qualley). But as with all things that involve injecting green liquids into your body, there are complications.
The film never shows us who exactly is administering these full-service substance kits. The enterprise is entirely anonymous. Elisabeth must travel to a hole in the wall and access a lock-box accessible only by a card she’s been sent in the mail. When she has problems or questions about the process, the voice at the end of the number she’s been told to call is unfeeling, unhelpful and distant.
The only significant bit of advice he imparts is that Elisabeth and Sue need to “respect the balance.” “There is no you or her, there is only the matrix. You are one.” It’s trite enough, and it seems fair to assume the instruction was merely meant to remind them to follow the rules as set out in the packets they’ve been sent. But conveniently, there’s no mention of the consequences for not doing so. Sue, having a good time, “steals” a few hours from Elisabeth before switching them back. When Elisabeth awakes, she finds that one of her fingers has nearly rotted.
You can probably extrapolate how the film ends from there. But the substance itself remains a mystery. It’s not a secret that the beauty industry thrives on insecurity. Problems are invented so that products can solve them. Hell, the only reason women started shaving their legs is because Gillette wanted to sell more razors. But in addition to being extraneous, there are also lots of beauty products that actively harm women. Everything from douches to hair relaxers ask women to risk their health in service of being, or attempting to be, younger, more beautiful and more desirable. There’s always a magic cure or potion promising women that they can, effectively, consume their way out of the patriarchy.
The immediate downside of that though, is that women’s pain isn’t taken seriously. A slowly desiccating husk of a body isn’t a common side effect, but it’s the one that Elisabeth is left with after Sue’s indiscretions. And as expected, there’s no recourse. Her failing body is presented as punishment for her vanity; a deserved fate for the crime of trying to fit into the box she’s been cast out of. When she calls again for help, she’s given a choice: continue or stop. Simple as that. But reclaiming her life won’t reclaim her body. In effect, her choice is to remain a disfigured outcast, or take her chances with the young and beautiful Sue.
It’s hard not to think of the way women in the real world are gaslit into ignoring the symptoms brought on by the products they use. Sure, we can stop using them, but we’ll have to accept that we’ll never be part of the privileged class who enjoys a facsimile of respect. Youth must be chased at all costs, injury be damned.
In an essay for The Cut, Tavi Gevinson wrote that “youth does carry currency, which can be mistaken for power. If you are a woman, however, this currency is not on your terms.” The dichotomy produced by Sue’s existence replicates this truth exactly. Though she now has access to everything that Elisabeth lost, she too is subject to the whims of the leering men in charge. It’s part of why her violent abuse of Elisabeth’s body is so frightful. In her mind, she’ll never be the new, improved her, if she doesn’t get rid of her literal older self. But who is it even in service of?
For Elisabeth, the substance promises much but takes even more. So it makes a sick kind of sense that the ramifications of engagement aren’t illuminated until it’s much too late to make a difference for her. Youth is everything. Vanity is vile. How you square the two is up to you.
Assorted Internet Detritus
REI needs to start doing better. The old rules are for losers. The mysterious hunt for an expert therapist who is maybe just totally made up. TV shows like Paradise keep using the same dirty trick. The latest chapter of the (very!) longform series on Beyoncé and her cinematic influences I have been eagerly awaiting (now up to self-titled). I’m also reading up on Vietnam’s own brand of Modernist architecture.
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