Vincere (2009)

Vincere,an Italian word for English,is a film that is based on the tragic lives of Benito Mussolini's first wife,Ida Dalser and their son,Benito Albino.It features the Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida and Filippo Timi in a dual role as Mussolini himself and his son,Benito Albino as an adult together with Fausto Russo Alesi,Michela Cescon and Pier Giorgio Bellocchio.Marco Bellocchio directs.It tells the story of Ida, who fell in love with the future Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.She supported him while he was unemployed as she shares his dream in life that involves triumphantly leading the Italian masses away from monarchy.She believes wholeheartedly in his ideals and his future as the leader of Italy that she sells everything she has to fuel the development of his newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia.They got married around 1914. She bore Mussolini a son named Benito Albino, before the outbreak of World War I.While the two fell in love,he quickly switches spiritual and political allegiances from an atheistic socialist to a deeply Catholic fascist because an, allegiance with the Vatican will allow him to wrest and retain control over Italy's government.Following his political ascendancy in 1925,the marriage certificate disappears and Ida learns that he has married Rachele Guidi with whom he had a daughter.She unwisely begins to protest the situation persistently that she was forced into house arrest and then shoved permanently Ida and their son into an insane asylum which determined her fate and the future of her young son. The film ended stating that Ida died in an asylum of brain hemorrhages;her son died as well in 1942 at an asylum after repeated coma-inducing injections; and Mussolini was killed by his enemies.This is a definitely one of the best Italian films I have ever seen.Mezzogiorno provides a great performance as Ida as well as Timi,who definitely will mesmerize the viewer as the ambitious young Mussolini and his insane son as an adult particularly when imitates his father's speech among his friends.Although the story started very well and it loses steam when both Ida and Benito Albino becomes mentally ill,the performances on the lead stars will keep us involved in the film.It also has a great cinematic lesson that worship of false leaders can lead to both personal breakdown and national collapse. Added to that,the film has a lot of passionate and emotional moments despite the fact that it can be incoherent at times especially if one is not well- versed with Italian history and the life of the late Fascist dictator.But overall,it is a can't miss film.Definitely,highly recommended.

a story like an old jewelery. parts of silver, gold and touch of silk. isles of ash and colors of a history page. a secret as seed for a movie about power and its price, sacrifice and its nuances, a too long time of fall, shadows and hypocrisy. a movie about Mussolini but more that. because it is an universal tale. about past and need of masks. about fragility of truth. about small battles. about woman as letter of letter of love, hope and hate. a movie as meditation. and occasion to Giovanna Mezzogiorno to create a subtle, powerful role. exploration of profound secret, recreation of a real drama, it is just trip to definition of basic feelings in precise mode.

Veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio films this (for the most part) entertaining if tragic story of Benito Mussollini's alleged first wife, one Ida Dalser, punctuating the story with a bombastic operatic score and another over the top flourishes. Dalser had a torrid affair with Mussolini just before World War I, when he was a socialist firebrand. According to the movie, the then penniless future dictator was able to fund his revolutionary newspaper from the money Dalser gave to him. When World War I erupted, Mussolini felt the Italian people national solidarity was much stronger than their class solidarity and decided to move to the right and support the war. During that time, he left Dalser for another woman who became his wife (the movie implies that Mussolini not only betrayed Dalser but also his revolutionary ideas). Dalser claimed that Mussolini had married her (she had a son by him she called Benito) but no marriage certificate has ever been found (assuming she was not lying, the certificate was presumably destroyed when the Duce was in power). Since Dalser wouldn't shut up, she was closely watched and harassed by his former lover's secret police. Eventually she is put under the care of the Catholic Church (the atheist Mussolini having decided after coming to power that the Vatican could be a good ally of his regime). Her fate as well as that of her son ends up in tragedy. While the movie shows that Dalser was clearly mistreated by the Duce, she's not a very sympathetic character, unstable, vindictive and unable to let the past go. As a result, while the first part of this film is very entertaining and gripping; the second part is far less compelling: the magnetic Mussolini leaves the screen and we are mostly left with the increasingly crazy ramblings of a scorned woman (however, later in the movie there is a great real footage included of the Duce rambling about Italy's becoming a sea empire). An interesting if not perfect movie.

The film is about Mussolini's secret lover Ida Dalser's tragic story. I know it is an important Italian film last year, but for me, before watching it, I even haven't seen a picture of Mussolini (fortunately enough at least I know who he is), and now, I think he looks a little bit like Robert Duvall (hope it is not an offense, to Signor Duvall). The well-recognized director Marco Bellocchio just passed 70, and as a disciple of Pasolini, through half a century, his films mainly are somewhat political-related, which explains very much why I haven't watched his other films yet. But after this one, I am more than happily to appreciate his other works, to name a few FISTS IN THE POCKET (PUGNI IN TASCA) (1965) his debut, HENRY IV (1984).It's a dark film, not only because of its palette (mainly depressive blue and purple, with scenes mostly happen in the night and later, inside a mental hospital), but also infused by the fate of our protagonist Ida Dalser (a marvelous Giovanna Mezzogiorno, whom I often mistake as Sarah McLanchlan). The reason why people (at least myself) love to watch tragic or dramatic films is because generally speaking, our own lives are not so turbulent, we need to see something to exercise or release our emotions, to make them move a little bit in case they will become numb. And I believe that dramatic films are much easier to make as often, the story itself has already been tantalizing enough so what the worst could it be? We have already prepared the tissue paper before the screen is lightening. I have to admit this film handled the sensitive topic skillfully, which proves that while aging, Marco is improving his skills too (which is so rare as we all know, 70s is definitely not a golden-era for directors), most obviously by substituting Filippo Timi's performance with black-white footages of real Mussolini in the latter part of the film, make sure the focus is Ida herself, as a man becomes the leader of a nation, he no longer belongs to any single person, at the same time any single person becomes trivial to him as well. I think Ida couldn't get through this, her love is blind, hormone-driven, but we feel sympathy for her because this is what we believe true love should be.It is a pity I'm not an Italian or I could have known more about Mussolini, otherwise I could enjoy more (or maybe not!). Anyway I am happy to see the surviving Italian directors from golden age still strive for making excellent films at a time when even Nanni Moretti has become legendary.http://xingshizuomeng.blogspot.com/