Vincere

Vincere Review

The relationship between the Italian people and its political leaders is a complicated one that has been tackled recently by a number of Italian filmmakers, resulting in films as diverse as Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo on Giulio Andreotti and Nanni Moretti's satire on Silvio Berlusconi in The Caiman. Perhaps the greatest and most political of modern-day Italian directors, Marco Bellocchio takes on arguably an even more complex subject in Vincere, one whose relationship with the Italian people is even more difficult to define - that of Benito Mussolini.

Typically however, from the director who found poetic resonance in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of elder statesman Aldo Moro by members of the Red Brigade in Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte), Vincere is far from a straightforward biopic. Bellocchio approaches his subject from a most unconventional angle, using the buried episode of Mussolini's secret first marriage to Ida Dalser, a marriage that would result in the birth of a child - unacknowledged by Mussolini - and the incarceration of Dalser in an insane asylum as Mussolini's rise to power called for a certain rewriting of his personal history. In their marriage, Bellocchio manages to examine the complicated nature of relationships between Italian men and women, and through it, say much about the nature of power in a wider historical and political context.

That still makes Vincere sound fairly conventional when in reality the film is much more complex in its structure and visual language. The relationship between Dalser and the dark, silent, forceful young Mussolini can seem as unfathomable as his move from militant socialism to fascism, and Bellocchio doesn't make it easy for the viewer to make sense of the contradictions, schizophrenically dividing the film in stylistic terms, the tall, dark and handsome Filippo Timi disappearing in the first half to be replaced by documentary footage of the real Mussolini, short, fat, ugly and bald in the second half. It makes no sense unless you consider what you are viewing is through the eyes of a young woman in the heightened emotional state of love in the earlier part, and betrayal in second.

It's Giovanna Mezzogiorno's performance that holds this together, preventing the film slipping over into empty stylistic excess (like Sorrentino's Il Divo) by underpinning it with strong meaningful human sentiments in her remarkably sensitive reading of Dalser. Whatever one makes of this puzzle of a film, which is extremely complicated in its range of political and cultural references (such as the way the Futurism art movement is integrated into the fabric of the film itself), and in what it says about the nature of the Italian people, Dalser's experience and Mezzagiorno's performance ensures that at the very least, Vincere presents a fascinating episode in recent political history through a touching portrait of a woman's blind love for a dangerous man.

Vincere Overview

Acclaimed Italian director Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket; Devil in the Flesh) delivers his boldest work yet, an audacious, visually stunning film that the Village Voice calls a stylistic knockout about fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and the woman he loved, scorned, denounced and then wrote out of history. Rising actor Filippo Timi is magnetic in a dual role as both the steamrolling dictator and the son he refuses to acknowledge. And Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Love In The Time Of Cholera) delivers a career-making, award-winning performance as Ida Dalser, the lover who wouldn t go away. Bellocchio is a master of eroticism and their scenes of abandon are so powerful and reckless (The Hollywood Reporter called them steamy ), it s easy to understand why Dalser could never give him up. His rise to power and her descent into an insane asylum are tragic counterpoints in a doomed romance. Dalser may have been written off at the time, but Bellocchio and Mezzogiorno allow her a final, unexpected triumph in this cinematic masterwork.

Vincere Specifications

Vincere (Italian for "win") doggedly portrays facets of a life hell-bent on the acquisition of power and fame. Italian director Marco Bellocchio (Devil in the Flesh), in his feature that has the high drama of opera and a soundtrack to match, tells the story of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's transformation into Il Duce (Filippo Timi) in light of the women he loved and spurned. While Mussolini's official wife is mentioned, the focus here is on his secret first wife, Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), who stars as a woman obsessed with claiming this megalomaniac as her husband despite her inability to provide officials with proof. Enter their child as evidence, Benito Albino (Fabrizio Costella), who as an adult is played by Timi to reinforce the physical resemblance to his father. One of the film's strengths is in how it follows Mussolini through his youngest years as a revolutionary, explaining his politics and his ability to rally citizens toward war. Though the story is dramatized, it is fascinating to understand how such a furious character charmed Italians. In early scenes, Ida's unflinching worship is also understandable, as Vincere implies that Mussolini's sexual appetites were as passionate as his political agenda. However, as Dalser and her son age, go into hiding, and face impending tragedies through the remainder of this very long feature, one loses any grasp on why Dalser continues to be obsessed with a man who obviously has no interest in her. While Mezzogiorno performs this mentally fragile woman with bravado, the character is extremely flawed and the plot does nothing to offer external perspectives to help viewers muster up sympathy. By the end, as the entire Mussolini enterprise crumbles, one is left frustrated by the stubbornness and blind devotion not only of Mussolini's fans, but also of the film's protagonist, Dalser, who remains statically on the road to downfall alongside her alleged husband. --Trinie Dalton

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