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Italy, the early 20th century: Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno)
catches a young and brilliant unionist and newspaper editor called Benito
Mussolini (Filippo Timi) giving one of his speeches, and falls in love
with him at first sight, quite despite the fact that in the early days of
the century, he is still considered an enemy of the state and persecuted -
but she does everything to support his political career and ideas, even
selling her house and shop and maybe even her body to help him publish his
own newspaper to distribute his ideas. They eventually marry and have a
son - but then, while in hospital, Mussolini meets another woman, Rachele
Guidi (Michela Cescon), with whom he falls in love, and he soon ditches
Ida in her favour, even marries Guidi. When World War I breaks out,
Mussolini enlists in the army to fight for his country, and when he
returns, he returns a changed man and ditches his ideas of socialism in
favour for fascism, and by 1922, he has become dictator of Italy. Ida
Dalser waits for Mussolini, whom she still loves, to return to her to him
as well, instead though he has quite a bunch of kids with Rachele Guidi
and has Ida put under surveillance by the state police, since she is the
only one who could compromise him. During that time, Ida writes letters to
pretty much everyone to state her case - but everyone thinks she is crazy
and she never gets any response. Still, after some time, Mussolini thinks
it's better to place her in an asylum, where she can do even less harm.
She makes several escape attempts, and continues writing letters to
whoever may care (but doesn't), but none of these letters are mailed. She
dies in 1937. Benito Albino, her son with Mussolini, is soon put under
custody of a loyal of Mussolini, where he is supposed to be reeducated so
that he renounces his mother's ideas that he is Il Duce's son, but he
never does - and eventually dies in an asylum in 1942, an asylum to which
he was sent because in later years he actually started believing he was
Mussolini himself (and quite fittingly, the grown-up Benito Albino was
also played by Filippo Timi). Mussolini himself held out the longest,
but he was overthrown in 1943 and shot dead by partisans in 1945. A
film that is great in parts - but not so in others. What's great about Vincere:
Marco Bellocchio's directorial effort is very vividand very stylish, and
he manages to give the matter-of-factliness of his plot an extra dimension
on a visual level. Plus he has a truly great cast on hand. That said
though, the script Bellocchio had to work from (his own by the way) could
have done with some improvements. Basically, it follows the actual facts
about the story it is telling too tightly, leaves little room for
improvisation on a narrative level, and in turn it leaves its characters a
bit bland and also seems terribly jumpy as it tries to cover a story
stretching about 30 years in approximately 2 hours. Still, on the whole Vincere
is quite an ok effort ...
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amazon.com
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amazon.de
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find Vincere at adultvideouniverse.com
