Mussolini and I

I've watched 30 minutes of this movie skipping the interminable opening credits and stopped the whole thing. My goodness! Was Hitler one of the descendant of an English Lord?Was he a student at Oxford? Does the director of this flop has ever watched the many newsreels showing the Fuhrer speaking and shouting?

From this on it was obvious that the whole production would be a masterpiece of historical errors or flaws.

There is today a tendency in the world's movie industry to treat history as a secondary subject where you can do whatever you want as long as you make money and where accuracy to historical facts and characters is considered as something unimportant.

Americans were at one time the masters of such behavior especially if the historical facts did not concern their own country, now the disease has spread all over the world but perhaps in Germany which up to now has had the courage to produce movies showing without indulgence the horrors which took place on its soil between 1930 and 1945.

That we Europeans be not able to consider with honesty our faults, our mistakes or worse, is a very dangerous symptom of ethical failure on our part.

Most people remember Benito Mussolini simply as Hitler's ally in WWII. "Mussolini and I" shows his family life during his years as Italy's leader. Starring Bob Hoskins as the Fascist himself, Susan Sarandon plays his daughter Edda, who married Count Galeazzo Ciano (Anthony Hopkins). Among other things, the movie shows not only how the relationships among these people were always shaky, but also that Mussolini and Hitler didn't totally trust each other.

Towards the war's end, Il Duce had Count Ciano executed, and shortly thereafter, Il Duce himself was of course arrested and executed. Edda escaped to Switzerland and survived the war. It's too bad that Mussolini was already dead when they hung him on the meat hook.

Very well done.

Interesting film, made for tv in Europe originally. The DVD version is significantly longer than the video version. Many scenes are extended as well as new scenes. Nice historical soap opera with much tragedy. Hopkins as usual is great as is Sarandon and Hoskins. The dubbing is kinda obvious, but so what, it works.

The problem with old mini-series is that they often do not come with close captions or subtitles which help the hearing impaired. The different accents of the international cast also made the dialog difficult to follow. Consequently, much of what they were saying was unintelligible and I found myself admiring the costumes, scenery and sets. Not that all this mattered in the end as the plot was so ludicrous it could have passed for an episode of Dynasty. I waited in vain for Joan Collins to show up and punch at least one of the women in the face.

Another problem was the casting of over exposed actors. If you don't care much for Anthony Hopkins, you are out of luck, because he is notching up as many appearances as John Gielgud. They will be carrying him on-stage in his 90's before long. In this film he played an Italian Count who apparently never met a woman he did not attempt to seduce. Bob Hoskins, another very good but over-exposed actor played Mussolini as if he was still in character for Harold Shand (The Long Good Friday) and sounded like an East London bookie at the racetrack.

At one point, Mussolini mused that if he pardoned his son-in-law, the Germans would despise them for acting like Italians. Shortly after, Signora Mussolini went to visit his mistress, Clara, armed with a small handgun. While the Signora was beating on the door, and the mistress trying to hide, the German guard was frantically calling Il Duce and asking what to do - the melodrama had me laughing out loud.

If Mistral's daughter and Princess Daisy is your cup of tea, you will enjoy this mini-series. I have no idea how historically accurate it was.

The script for this TV soap opera is so bad that even A. Hopkins at some point had to play like an undergrad drama-student so as to bring some life in his script-dead character. I do not know whether this was the purpose of the director, but Hopkins' Ciano reeked nothing but vanity, fear and lack of self-esteem. The real Ciano possibly was all that but then, why make a movie about him? Mussolini was a bit more convincing, and his long way down was as if closer to the truth. Edda Mussolini was plain ridiculous (not because of Sarandon, but because of the impotent script), while she had to be the central character of this alleged familial drama. Watch it only if you enjoy Venezuelan soap opera.