Can you review your favorite Oscar-nominated film in 17 syllables? Surely that's more a expressive range than the number of thumbs up?
This year, Darlene Kress (BA, 1971) rose to the challenge, giving us her review in all-caps Italian! If you read it aloud, feel free to use your outside voice.
CONCLAVE
BENE DEO! MORTE!
MITRE ROSSO SCANDALO
SANTO FUMO! FIN
Below, Teaching Professor Ali Patterson, who works primarily in the Film and Media Studies program, provides a handy translation along with comments on the haiku and the film!
CONCLAVE
GOOD G-D! A DEATH.
CARDINAL'S HAT SCANDAL.
HOLY SMOKE! THE END.
When The Fifth Floor asked me to review this year’s Oscars haiku challenge, I agreed, though it would be a stretch for me. I did not expect such a stretch of my (or our collective) linguistic muscles as this haiku, which not only encapsulates the crisis of the film Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024) but also does so in language play befitting the film’s milieu. Using both literal and figurative language, the poem almost meets the condition for haiku in both its original and (rough) English translation. Its slight variation on the generic constraints is befitting the film it honors, a political thriller that takes melodramatic and comedic turns.
Nominated for eight Oscars and winning Best Adapted Screenplay, Conclave attracted new viewership after the death of Pope Francis, though that conclave was, from all outward appearances, less eventful and contentious.
Darlene Kress has been a friend and contributor to T5F. In addition to her undergraduate degree in English, she is a retired CPA with an MBA. After a career of preparing and editing a variety of business documents, she says that creative writing "has provided a new avenue of communication." She is currently completing a series of short stories highlighting the impact of urban sprawl on the existing wildlife habitats and ecosystems.
Kress lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, with her husband Herb, where they enjoy reading, listening to music, bird-watching, and gardening.