Vincere (2009)
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col/bw 128m
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi, Corrado Invernizzi
Synopsis:
A Milan seamstress becomes infatuated with the rising star of the Workers' Party, Benito Mussolini. He makes her his mistress but when she produces a son runs for cover to his family and developing position, founded on a massive gift of money she had made to him. There follows a series of confrontations and repudiations that culminate in the incarceration of the still admiring mother in mental institutions.
Review:
This is only incidentally an exposé of the gulling of an entire nation by a popinjay, though the sideswipes at political satire, with the preening and posturing brilliantly sent up by Mussolini Junior, for example, are unerringly effective. Central to the film is the portrayal of the unfortunate deluded heroine/victim, grippingly played by Mezzogiorno. Like an avatar for an entire people she never swerves in her faith in the charismatic demagogue, Mussolini, another vital performance from Timi. Like some Saint Joan, persisting in maintaining her heresy, she is unswayed even by one of her few sympathetic guardians, a fascist-agnostic pyschiatrist at the Venetian institution. The musical score, whose minimalist leanings ape the handiwork of Philip Glass (quoted directly in an excerpt from Akhnaten), putting the film in common territory to its contemporary I Am Love, and some operatic flourishes in the mise en scène (the tall barred window Ida climbs, the scene where Victor-Emmanuel visits the wounded Mussolini in hospital, observed both by wife and mistress) give the senses much to enjoy while the intellect ponders the ironies.
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col/bw 128m
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi, Corrado Invernizzi
Synopsis:
A Milan seamstress becomes infatuated with the rising star of the Workers' Party, Benito Mussolini. He makes her his mistress but when she produces a son runs for cover to his family and developing position, founded on a massive gift of money she had made to him. There follows a series of confrontations and repudiations that culminate in the incarceration of the still admiring mother in mental institutions.
Review:
This is only incidentally an exposé of the gulling of an entire nation by a popinjay, though the sideswipes at political satire, with the preening and posturing brilliantly sent up by Mussolini Junior, for example, are unerringly effective. Central to the film is the portrayal of the unfortunate deluded heroine/victim, grippingly played by Mezzogiorno. Like an avatar for an entire people she never swerves in her faith in the charismatic demagogue, Mussolini, another vital performance from Timi. Like some Saint Joan, persisting in maintaining her heresy, she is unswayed even by one of her few sympathetic guardians, a fascist-agnostic pyschiatrist at the Venetian institution. The musical score, whose minimalist leanings ape the handiwork of Philip Glass (quoted directly in an excerpt from Akhnaten), putting the film in common territory to its contemporary I Am Love, and some operatic flourishes in the mise en scène (the tall barred window Ida climbs, the scene where Victor-Emmanuel visits the wounded Mussolini in hospital, observed both by wife and mistress) give the senses much to enjoy while the intellect ponders the ironies.
Country: IT/FR
Technical: col/bw 128m
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Cast: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi, Corrado Invernizzi
Synopsis:
A Milan seamstress becomes infatuated with the rising star of the Workers' Party, Benito Mussolini. He makes her his mistress but when she produces a son runs for cover to his family and developing position, founded on a massive gift of money she had made to him. There follows a series of confrontations and repudiations that culminate in the incarceration of the still admiring mother in mental institutions.
Review:
This is only incidentally an exposé of the gulling of an entire nation by a popinjay, though the sideswipes at political satire, with the preening and posturing brilliantly sent up by Mussolini Junior, for example, are unerringly effective. Central to the film is the portrayal of the unfortunate deluded heroine/victim, grippingly played by Mezzogiorno. Like an avatar for an entire people she never swerves in her faith in the charismatic demagogue, Mussolini, another vital performance from Timi. Like some Saint Joan, persisting in maintaining her heresy, she is unswayed even by one of her few sympathetic guardians, a fascist-agnostic pyschiatrist at the Venetian institution. The musical score, whose minimalist leanings ape the handiwork of Philip Glass (quoted directly in an excerpt from Akhnaten), putting the film in common territory to its contemporary I Am Love, and some operatic flourishes in the mise en scène (the tall barred window Ida climbs, the scene where Victor-Emmanuel visits the wounded Mussolini in hospital, observed both by wife and mistress) give the senses much to enjoy while the intellect ponders the ironies.