Vincere

My brother was in attendance for this one, and we were pretty much in unison in opinion. The first act of Vincere ("Win!") is quite extraordinary. In fact we both had the spine chills for the credits which featured a display of enormous mounted ship cannons.

It's a film about the relationship between Benito Mussolini and Ida Dalser. The first act, where they are actually together, is extraordinary. Mussolini is a power hungry madman, incapable of a non-hyperbolic thought, he quotes Napoleon at will and ravishes Ida in the moonlight of their cavernous apartment. He's the ultimate political opportunist, and Ida falls in love with his pure thuggery, despite his obviously third-rate intellect. I then had a problem for the remainder of the film, because I was expected to sympathise with Ida, whom Mussolini pushes away, even though she is a brute-loving nincompoop.

Despite Giovanna Mezzogiorno's excellent acting as Ida Dalser, it's like Bellochio isn't sure where to take the story, as if life doesn't really fit into his narrative structure. I remembered reading Robert Graves' book Count Belisarius as a teen, which starts off as a stonking good read about the adventures of a general in the Byzantine Empire, but then becomes far to encumbered with an adherence to history, that almost makes the latter part of the experience like reading a textbook, a real chore.

As another reviewer has pointed out, the actor in the movie who plays Mussolini, Filippo Timi, is far more interesting and nuanced than the actual historical figure, and it's simply ridiculous when we see newsreel footage and have to see Mussolini the real man, followed by Timi in the next scene. I have to hand it to Italians that they certainly have a talent for electing verminous cretins to high office that has lasted to this very day. You see the newsreel footage and it's impossible not to titter.

The film in retrospect is simply a misadventure in my opinion.

I just love allegories. I love the way so much imagination is poured into the re-telling of a story via new material. We all know our history, so we know about Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, and his reign of Fascism over Italy. But we don't know about the adulterous relationship he had with a certain Ida Dalser, who gave birth to his child and who Mussolini, in his unforgivable cold-bloodedness, calmly strived to strip apart. That's what Marco Bellocchio's new film, "Vincere", is all about: it's a historical drama about the woman Mussolini tried so hard to ruin after economically and sexually using her...and it's also a sublime allegory of how he used all of Italy.

Critics worldwide have seen the genius behind portraying Mussolini's reign of terror as a headstrong but powerless woman. Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) instantly falls under the spell of a young, handsome Mussolini (Filippo Timi). Italy is only beginning to experience the first waves of Socialism, and among those first to rebel against the government is this young man who has a certain power with words; in a scene where he runs away from the police for being involved in a riot, he shields himself behind the curious Ida who stepped out for a look, and passionately kisses her. I mean, Benito is a good kisser, or so he seems to be, because Ida melts in utter passion in his arms while he kisses her and he...well, he's a really good actor too, for he can focus his strength on this steamy kiss at the same time that his full concentration and awareness are scrutinizing the area to see if the police are gone. Sure enough, once they're gone he pushes Ida away and runs without so much as a half-hearted smile...but the kiss was enough for Ida to fall mercilessly in love with him.

In a matter of days, she's stalking him, getting into his fights and showing him glimpses of her crotch which get our all-too human Benito hot for her. The first twenty-something minutes of the film our two main characters spend passionately and intensely going at it. Well, Ida does the passionate part and Mussolini, as I've said before, is a really good actor; while Ida spends her every second in a sexual Nirvana, he is all steam but his stare is distant, serious, no doubt thinking about anything else but the woman coming in his arms. Ida's obsession with the dude takes her as far as selling almost all of her things and giving him all the money so he can establish his own Socialist newspaper. Notice the incredibly sarcastic scene where Ida finally asks Benito to tell her 'I love you.' Mussolini, who at this point of the film hasn't gotten over his hate for Germans, plainly answers 'Ich liebe dich.' But this is an allegory, so here's where the plot thickens. Mussolini just happens to be married, Ida finds out, but he can't move himself to even let her go properly because he's becoming really powerful so he doesn't need her anymore. Ida gives birth to his child, but he couldn't care less. Ida's obsession is so deep, though, that she really starts pestering Benito every living moment she has...and by the time Benito is a 9-year old boy, Ida spills the cup and our villainous dictator sends her to an insane asylum and gives the custody of her son to one of his right-hand men. From here on, it's chaos...both in Italy and on our tragic heroine's life. Just as a side note, the film claims to be based on true events; obviously, the rise of Fascism in Italy IS a true event, but I can't vouch for the verisimilitude of Mussolini's secret lover. I'm ready to believe it, though, because he was such a horrid man that he must've done to thousands of women the very same thing he did to Ida. And not only women: I mean, didn't he screw up millions of people's lives by using them? The film brings the suffering of an entire war-torn country into a very intelligent perspective by allegorizing it into the character of Ida Dalser, and that's more than can be said by any recent historical drama.

Sounds good, doesn't it? The acting is pitch-perfect, especially Mezzogiorno who redeems herself for her atrocious main performance in Mike Newell's "Love in the Time of Cholera" and manages to give us a heart-breaking, poignant, sublime and VERY powerful performance (I wonder why she didn't get an Oscar nod? Academy voters must've definitely been high). We see a woman who has no chance of survival, who'll never see her son again, whose life has been ruined by Italy's most powerful man, but her strength and courage stand true to the very last. The screenplay is VERY good, actually; Carlo Crivelli's score is one of the best scores I've heard in a long time (which sounds like a perfect cross between Philip Glass and Dario Marianelli) and Marco Dentici's cinematography couldn't possibly be better. Also, the film never lags, and it touches on so many levels of human suffering and cruelty, that you can't help but me moved to deeper thought. What more can you ask of a film? See it. Italy has outdone itself this year with such an excellent film. No one in their right minds could possibly be disappointed. Rating: 4 stars out of 4!!

If the film-writer wanted to emphasize WHY the young Mussolini hated the church, he did a great job. The church's role in backing the power-mad dictator is demonstrated again and again. The movie shows his wife as clear-minded, yet her actions even after the priest has cautioned her on how to 'act' and appear to submit, indicate a crazed woman who can't believe that her actions are hopeless in the light of the corrupt country that Italy has become. there are many parallels to the United States here, as our country becomes increasingly an oligarchy, ruled by corporations with few in Congress not bought by their bribes.

Makes you wonder if speaking out does any good in such a hypocritical, ignorant time in which the T-Partiers, not realizing they embody the rants of Mussolini, speak to the low-esteem, the animalistic urges of the masses. This was a fantastic movie and I was amazed that there were so few in the audience, though not amazed that it appeared at our art movie houses here in Boston (the West Newton's adjunct, the Arlington's Capitol).

I found this movie extremely absorbing, from beginning to end. It's true what other critics have observed that the real Mussolini in the old newsreels looks quite different from the actor personifying him, and the sudden confrontations between one and the other are quite unsettling.

Could it be that recreating this historical newsreels with this actor as Mussolini was not possible due to the insufficient budget? Or maybe the director wanted to show us the real Mussolini to give us a good idea about the individual? Another confusing issue: The actor playing Mussolini also plays his adult son.

And we don't get to see the final days of this dictator, when he was involved with Clara (Claretta) Petacci, his last lover, twenty eight years younger and executed with him (and both corpses hanged upside down in the public square).

The photography and the camera work are exquisite, as are the lighting --absolute perfection-- the acting --masterful-- and the music --excellent.

Very somber movie, shot most of the time in heavy darkness; there is no comic relief whatsoever, not even light humor, but then, the story is extremely dark and tragic, something that could have come out from a Dorothy Parker story.

Bellocchio's latest is yet another look at a controversial Italian political figure, Benito Mussolini; however, it deals with a phase of his life which was kept 'in the shadows' for a great many years – the dictator's first marriage, which even yielded him a son! As was the case with GOOD MORNING, NIGHT (2003) – in which the film-maker had treated the abduction and execution of ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro – the politician emerges not to be the central figure after all (remaining, similarly, little more than a cipher); here, in fact, the protagonist is Mussolini's secreted – or, more precisely, rejected – wife, who even winds up in a mental institution (a fate which also befalls their offspring, where both would die eventually)! The meticulous period reconstruction (and emphatic score) was to be expected, yet the human drama – and, by extension, the fine leading performances of Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Fabrizio Timi – is ultimately what renders the movie compelling; interestingly, while Mussolini as an older man is shown only via authentic newsreel footage, Timi plays both father and son as a young adult! Needless to say, the director distances himself from the Fascist fervor which had gripped his nation in those pivotal war years – choosing to depict Mussolini as godless (the film begins with him defying the Almighty to strike him down) and inhuman (both in the treatment of his first family and in his animalistic sexual prowess: the latter scenes, of which there a few, would otherwise have no discernible point) and even goes so far as to ridicule him by having son repeatedly caricature father's famously arrogant mannerisms while speechifying (with this in mind, the title – which translates to "Winning" – is clearly ironic, since what it presents is anything but the correct fighting spirit)!