Fashion meets faith in film

DR. LUIS DIAS

Bengaluru has changed so much. I remember being fascinated by its quaint ‘road-train’ city buses (two buses attached back-to-back, with one driver and two conductors, one in each bus) when we visited in the early 1970s. Now commuting anywhere is a nightmare.

Among the things we did during our week in Bengaluru was see a movie in Nexus Mall near our hotel.

One notable difference compared to Goa was the absence of the National Anthem before the film began. It made me wonder if the compulsory ‘test of patriotism’ is restricted to
BJP-ruled states. Another observation: When Alia Bhatt flogs a toothpaste in Mumbai, the ad is dubbed in Marathi. In Bengaluru, she ‘speaks’ Kannada. But in Goa, instead of our Konkani, we hear the ad in Hindi. Is Goa too tiny a market to bother with, that Hindi or English work with audiences here just as well? Lastly: there were several Kannada films running in the same multiplex, in stark contrast to the state of Konkani cinema in Goa.

Among the English-language options, ‘The Devil wears Prada 2’ stood out.

I’m not enamoured with the fashion world, and in ‘The Devil wears Prada’ (2006), I was repelled by what amounted to bullying in the workplace and all the excess in the fashion industry. So I went to the sequel for no better reason than ‘time-pass’.

The plot seemed contrived from the start. The first film ends with Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway) so disillusioned with Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) and the dog-eat-dog fashion world that she quits her job and gets into ‘serious’ journalism, something she’d always
wanted anyway.

Yet we are asked to believe that 20 years later, Andy, through a series of improbable plot twists, returns to work at ‘Runway’ fashion magazine, as features editor, no less.

The spotlight on Milan Fashion Week and on the city in general, and neighbouring Lake Como, were high points in the film. I can imagine how it will generate interest and boost tourism to those locations.

I was especially surprised by the dinner scene in the refectory of Milan’s Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which houses on an end-wall the famous mural painting ‘The Last Supper’ by Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to
c. 1495-98. I wondered how permission had been granted to film in such a significant, sensitive location.

I learned later that the whole dinner scene was filmed on a set built to three-quarters scale, including a hand-painted replication of the iconic mural by “a team of craftsmen led by a woman who manages set design for a Roman opera house”. Jess Gonchor, production designer for both ‘Prada’ films, told Condé Nast Traveler last month that on several private tours “we were allowed to take our time and figure out how we wanted to replicate it—just myself and a couple other people, no crowds. It was a really special thing to get to do”.

The exchange between Miranda and Andy in front of the mural was reveals more about Miranda’s cynical view about life than about
the painting.

Miranda spots Andy admiring the mural (while the rest of the party carry on conversing as if unaware or unfazed at being in the presence of a masterpiece) and asks if she knows much about ‘The Last Supper’, to which Andy replies, “Not as much as I should.”

Miranda points out that Jesus Christ is depicted without a halo. “You can find frescoes and the same subject matter all over Europe. In the other versions, the Man in Charge is usually depicted with a halo. People think that it was da Vinci’s way of saying we are human; no-one is perfect. Humans are at once glorious and fallible. And inevitably we deceive and betray one another, let each other down.”

She sighs deeply and says “It’s what we are built to do. Wouldn’t you agree?” And walks away, letting the words sink in as suspenseful music builds to a climax in the background.

It is a pivotal point in the film, as Miranda, using the painting as a device, lets Andy know she (Miranda) knows about the plot against her and hints that she suspects Andy of being in
on it.

Even while mulling on arguably the most famous painting in Christianity, Miranda is unable to drop the shop-talk. For her, Jesus is “the Man in Charge” just as she (would like to think she) has been “in charge” of her little ‘Runway’ fiefdom. Although she doesn’t say it out loud, it seems obvious that to her, the Apostles are like her underlings, and the one who will betray her is the “Judas Iscariot” in their midst.

Betrayal is, of course, a central theme in da Vinci’s painting, as it represents as a dynamic psychological drama the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with His Twelve Apostles as it is told in the Gospel of St. John — specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of the Apostles will betray Him.

Although not a refectory when da Vinci painted it, the theme was a traditional one for refectories and
dining halls.

Da Vinci took his time painting ‘The Last Supper’. When a prior from the monastery complained about the delay, da Vinci apparently wrote to the monastery head that he was struggling to find the “perfect villainous face” for Judas, and if none could be found, he would use the face of the prior who had complained!

Dan Brown’s sensationalist 2003 ‘Da Vinci Code’ did a huge disservice to the masterpiece by fueling unfounded speculation that the person to the right of Jesus was not St. John, but Mary Magdalene. Italian art expert Ross King elegantly debunks this and more in his 2012 book ‘Leonardo and The Last Supper’.

The mural has undergone 21 years (1978-1999) of restoration, inviting much criticism. ‘Last Supper or dog’s dinner?’ screamed a headline in The Guardian in 1999. James Beck, art historian specialising in the Italian Renaissance, in an article ‘It’s Art but is it Leonardo’s?’ felt only 20% of the mural is by da Vinci, the bulk now the work of restorers.

Back to ‘The Devil wears Prada 2’: Both Miranda and Andy reveal the “cost” as strong-willed women of their devotion to work and career. Miranda has to be reminded by her partner that even if she loses her career, she still has him and their children. She admits to Andy “how much of my children’s lives I’ve missed.”

We also learn that Andy in the two decades since ‘Prada 1’ has postponed settling down and frozen her ova should she want to have children in the future.

Writing for the Catholic Weekly (‘Glamour, ambition and a lesson from The Last Supper in the Devil Wears Prada 2’, June 9, 2026), Emeritus Professor Michael Quinlan concludes, “We can only hope that viewers leave this movie not only having enjoyed the glamour and style of haute couture but seeing the error in Miranda’s characterisation of ‘The Last Supper’ and recognising that while there certainly is dignity in working, work can never replace faith and family.”