Vincere

Previous to Vincere, the only Marco Bellocchio picture I've seen is The Devil in the Flesh, which was scandalous upon its release because it was so sexually explicit to the point where an actress performed unsimulated fellatio. Vincere (which means "Win") doesn't go that far, but early on there is a hot scene, where an actor with a smoldering stare undresses and copulates with a beautiful actress. Did I mention that the handsome actor is playing Benito Mussolini?

Most Americans know Mussolini for making the trains of Italy run on time, wildly gesticulating during his balcony speeches to an adoring throng, and ending up hoisted on a meat hook following his execution. For those who want to know more, here is a film that in some ways could be called The Private Life of Benito Mussolini. But the twist is that the tale is largely told through the character of Ida Dalser, who may or may not have been his first wife.

Dalser, who is played by the musically monikered Giovanna Mezzogiorno, was a beautician who believed so much in Mussolini that she sold everything she owned and gave it to him so he could start a socialist newspaper. He was a rabble-rousing editor, a rabid socialist, and to judge by the performance of Filippo Timi, a devastating lover. During the first third or so of the film, Bellocchio uses a lot of archival footage and agitprop-style techniques to hurdle pell-mell through the years just before and during World War I, when Italy was drawn into the conflict. Mussolini is wounded during the war, and ends up marrying another woman, though Dalser claims she is his wife, and has borne him a son.

The film then takes a turn. Mussolini, except for archival footage of the real man, disappears from the film, as he ascends to power in Italy. Dalser, seen as a threat since she insists that she is his wife, ends up in an insane asylum, her son taken away from her. What started as a bodice-ripping historical drama ends up like an Italian version of The Snake Pit.

Parts of Vincere work very well, but not as whole. There are some glaring questions that, to my mind, were unanswered. Mussolini goes from being a socialist to a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree switch, founding the Fascists. I understand the reasons for this may be more complex that this film could accommodate, but it still is bothersome. Worse is that we don't really get an answer as to why he threw over Dalser. We know nothing about her before she knew Mussolini, and we only see the woman he would acknowledge as his wife once--when she threatens to rip the ears off of Dalser, who visits him in the hospital while convalescing. Did he just tire of her? Was she damaged goods? We don't know.

Bellocchio clearly sympathizes with Dalser, and Mezzogiorno gives an impressive performance. There is no evidence that the two were ever wed, but Bellocchio includes a scene of their wedding and shows us that Dalser hid her marriage certificate--never found--in a stuffed bird. Perhaps this has more meaning to Italians that it does to the otherwise disinterested, as this ends up being a moderately interesting but ultimately frustrating slice of history.