A pretty good movie...You have to understand...All popes were Italian--until Karol Wojtyla was elected in the late 70s as Pope. The former Wojtyla...survived both the Nazis and the Communists.
Thus, this movie's fictional Pope has much in common with the real life first non-Italian Pope - Karol Wojtyla - also from a then-communist country--Poland.
At the Vatican, the cardinals (in their desperation to reach a vote---and to elect a Pope who would be a good leader) elect the new Cardinal from then-communist Russia - former Ukranian Prisoner ##102592R - Kiril Pavov Lakota...who had served 20 years in a Siberian labor camp (later called "gulags").
There are various subplots---described by others here. But the big plot is the threat of nuclear war between the Soviets and the Chinese (who are suffering a huge famine & who might use nuclear weapons).
As some Americans are now taught that the "Cold War" was no big deal, this movie's dangerous international situations will no doubt seem fake. But read up (far & wide) the Cold War (and the thread of nuclear war) was real. (I knew a man who said...his plane carried a nuclear warhead!)
While some of this movie is a bit too late 1960s---and a touch creaky, maybe this movie will inspire some to research (in multiple places) the AMAZING essentially nonviolent way that Communism fell apart in the Soviet Union & its European satellites.
And --in the 1980s---a US President, a British Prime Minister, a Polish working man, ...and a Polish born Pope were the main ones to "tear down the wall"!!!
Thus, this movie's fictional Pope has much in common with the real life first non-Italian Pope - Karol Wojtyla - also from a then-communist country--Poland.
At the Vatican, the cardinals (in their desperation to reach a vote---and to elect a Pope who would be a good leader) elect the new Cardinal from then-communist Russia - former Ukranian Prisoner ##102592R - Kiril Pavov Lakota...who had served 20 years in a Siberian labor camp (later called "gulags").
There are various subplots---described by others here. But the big plot is the threat of nuclear war between the Soviets and the Chinese (who are suffering a huge famine & who might use nuclear weapons).
As some Americans are now taught that the "Cold War" was no big deal, this movie's dangerous international situations will no doubt seem fake. But read up (far & wide) the Cold War (and the thread of nuclear war) was real. (I knew a man who said...his plane carried a nuclear warhead!)
While some of this movie is a bit too late 1960s---and a touch creaky, maybe this movie will inspire some to research (in multiple places) the AMAZING essentially nonviolent way that Communism fell apart in the Soviet Union & its European satellites.
And --in the 1980s---a US President, a British Prime Minister, a Polish working man, ...and a Polish born Pope were the main ones to "tear down the wall"!!!