Vincere

Marco Bellocchio's Vincere ( which means to vanquish), from 2009, is both a political allegory and a study in erotomania. The film follows Mussolini's first wife, Ida Dalser, from her initial meeting with Il Duce to her death in an asylum in 1937. When Mussolini rose to power in Italy in 1920, he sought to hide any evidence of this union. He wanted to do this for a number of reasons, most pointedly because of the probability that he was a bigamist. Almost all evidence of his union with Dalser and his fathering a son with her was expunged. The facts were only uncovered by journalist Marco Zeni in 2005. Dalser was prevented from causing trouble for her paramour by being kept in a series of institutions until her death; a fate that also awaited Benito Jr. who died in an asylum after receiving repeated coma inducing injections in 1942. 

The allegory is a bit simple minded, Il Duce pulling the wool over the eyes of the Italian Populace and then enslaving them just as he does with Dalser, but Bellocchio displays so much visual imagination and energy that I was bowled over. Bellocchio utilizes newsreel footage, animation and snatches of films that range from Chaplin's The Kid to Giulio Antamoro's Christus to show the tenor of the times and the sweep of history. His use of The Kid, a scene where Jackie Coogan is being ripped from the loving arms of The Tramp by the authorities, effectively mirrors the desolation Dalser feels when separated from her son. I've never seen newsreel footage interpolated so well in a fictional film. Bellocchio effectively displays Mussolini, usually shown haranguing vast crowds in squares, conjuring a magnetic hold on the populace through personal appearances and the media. 

Bellocchio's rationale for the use of newsreel footage is a sound one. The film is told from Dalser's perspective and, by 1920, Mussolini was out of her life. She only catches glimpses of him in the cinema. The actor who plays Mussolini, Filippo Timi, goes on to play Benito Jr. in the film. What is sometimes a wrongheaded cliché in Hollywood films (see especially Carol Lynley's dual role in Preminger's The Cardinal) works well in Vincere, particularly in a scene where Benito Jr. mimics his father's overheated oratory. 

What carries the film is Giavanna Mezzogiorno's titanic portrayal of Ida. The moment she locks eyes onto Mussolini's rebellious young socialist, she is a goner and Mezzogiorno embodies the delusionary nature of complete romantic infatuation to a tee. I remember how much Bellocchio's Devil in the Flesh got a rise out of me when I saw it in San Francisco in the 80s and Vincere similarly evokes the erotic pull and blind folly of romantic love.