L’Udienza by Marco Ferreri

Amedeo wants to see the Pope. He’s a man on a mission, appearing at the entrance of the Vatican one sunny morning and asking for a meeting with the man himself. He seems to have a good reason (one which we never find out) and some documents. The countless guards keep sending him from office to office. The employees of the bureaucratic Vatican don’t want to let, at any cost, the visitor to successfully complete his journey.

Amedeo’s attempts are followed by a church polizioto, Aureliano, who tries to show him that such a request has no chance of success. The institutional structure that the Vatican has doesn’t allow this kind of spontaneous event.

Rather than signs of faith and areas for prayer, the main elements you can spot inside the Vatican are numerous offices, piles of documents, busy, clueless employees and surveillance mechanisms. The defence system of the Vatican is something to fear: the inaccessibility of the Pope is ensured by spies, detractors and prostitutes. The absurd humour and political subtexts of Marco Ferreri’s film form a classic critique of the Italian church’s departure from the lives of the believers, and its transformation into a corporate-style stronghold.

Mark Racz