Long earlier than Benito Mussolini turns to the digital camera and says, “Make Italy great again” — talking in English for the one and solely time in Joe Wright’s eight-hour restricted collection — it’s clear whose title would precede “Son of the Century” if MUBI have been to greenlight a twenty first century installment.
Of course, Donald Trump possible looms bigger than different fashionable fascists for me, given my (increasingly embarrassing) American roots, however “Mussolini: Son of the Century‘s” chosen timeline maps its tyrant’s rise to energy so plainly onto that of the United States’ wannabe-dictator, it’s laborious to argue coincidence. Fascism is on the rise everywhere, however this thrumming critique has its sight set on one explicit blackshirt, and he’s stained in orange.
Take, for example, the place the collection begins: with Mussolini the “journalist” railing towards socialism whereas crafting entertaining propaganda that furthers his personal agenda. Sure, Trump “only” used tv to manufacture his popularity as an excellent businessman, relatively than write Fox News chyrons first-hand, however media manipulation continues to be media manipulation, then and now, in print or on TV. A extra express reference comes seconds later, when Mussolini (performed with boisterous tenacity by Luca Marinelli) mocks his right-hand man for having “the smallest hands.” (“I can’t imagine his cock,” Mussolini provides, talking on to the digital camera.) Then, nonetheless inside 10 minutes of the primary episode, a mob of fascists brutally batter a peaceable group of socialists.
The ghastly scene units up the collection’ ongoing central battle (establishing the villains and heroes, if you’ll), and — although “Son of the Century” was made lengthy earlier than right-wing media painted Zohran Mamdani as an existential menace to America — fascists and socialists tossing barbs at each other (or, extra precisely, fascists tossing grenades and socialists shouting accusations of grenade-tossing) nonetheless brings the battle between Twenties Italian political events roaring into 2020s New York City.
Mussolini truly was once a socialist, even operating their official newspaper earlier than he was ousted as a warmonger and pivoted to fascism. When Mussolini explains it (on to the digital camera once more, as he so typically does), fascism is a motion of contradictions: “We’re not a party,” he says, “we’re an anti-party.” They don’t interact in politics as a result of they’re anti-politics, and the identical goes for elections, the monarchy, and the church. “Fascism is everything,” Mussolini says, “and the opposite of everything.”
So… it’s nothing. Accepting such ruthless adherence to victory with out which means is the muse of Mussolini’s motion — “Our only doctrine is action,” he says — so it’s no marvel he steadily betrays every of his oppositional positions in an effort to transfer up the ranks. Anti-politics? Not if just a little politicking brings him extra energy. Anti-elections? Not if he can win them (democratically or in any other case). Anti-monarchy? Not if he has an opportunity to be king. Anti-church? Who is God to a person like Mussolini, besides one other affect to be introduced below his command?
If none of this brings Trump to thoughts, to begin with, I envy you greater than you might presumably think about, and secondly, congratulations in your latest escape from that enormous rock. Wright’s restricted collection is a livid fever dream connecting the previous to the current. Events span simply over 5 years of Mussolini’s life, ending proper earlier than his decades-long dictatorship formally begins, however they nonetheless cowl his pivotal March on Rome (when Mussolini known as for an “insurrection” as an alternative of elections), the fascist get together’s infiltration of Parliament (“[They] think they’ve domesticated us, but they’ve only legalized us”), and a number of scenes foregrounding Mussolini’s violent remedy of ladies. (He’s proven raping a newspaper staffer, and his spouse, Rachele, brags that their first time collectively was “by force.”)
Wright captures the madman’s vitality together with his trademark kinetics. There are rear-projections of previous newsreel footage solid towards foregrounded black-and-white photographs of his solid; iris ins and outs that emphasize Mussolini’s isolating, irreparable ego, or reveal momentary reduction through his throngs of admirers; ornate events, rallies, and clashes full of scores of extras and set inside shadowy, palatial areas; and, after all, there are prolonged monitoring photographs galore.
Marinelli — a two-time Best Actor winner on the Venice Film Festival (“Don’t Be Bad,” “Martin Eden”) who Wright called “one of the greatest actors of his generation, if not the greatest actor of his generation” — is on the middle of all of it. His forceful speechifying is commonly captured from a low angle, positioning the viewer like Mussolini’s awed front-row viewers, however such formal assists are largely pointless in terms of appreciating the character’s gravity. From enunciation to intonation, gesticulation to cadence, he nails the propulsive rhythm of Wright’s scenes (co-written by Stefano Bises and Davide Serino) and earns your consideration with out elevating Mussolini above the opportunistic, shitty little man he was. Marinelli’s efficiency is well-measured, even when his character is hifalutin and brash.
Still, “Mussolini: Son of the Century” comes up quick relating something exterior of Mussolini’s viewpoint. We’re so intently tied to the central character’s perspective — he’s in almost each scene, he narrates his personal story, and he sucks up all of the oxygen by design — that it’s unimaginable to see him how the general public should have seen him then. He talks of casting “magic tricks” on Parliament and the proletariat alike, however we’re concurrently too removed from the spectators to understand the phantasm and too near the magician to see something however a liar.
The collection additionally shares a standard wrestle with different tales of Trump in terms of dissecting a psyche devoid of rules and which means. “We fascists have no preconceived ideas,” Mussolini says, not lengthy after he defines fascism as “the opposite of everything.” Hinging a prolonged biography on an individual whose total identification comes right down to procuring energy doesn’t make for a dynamic portrait; it’s a easy one, and “Son of the Century” does a positive job acknowledging as a lot. That’s what makes fascists so harmful, in spite of everything — they don’t imagine in something, which makes them each unpredictable and ruthless — but it surely doesn’t lend itself to a layered, creating narrative.
Mussolini will say something and do something to additional his private agenda, and his private agenda quantities to hoarding energy. There’s nothing else to him — all bluster and no substance — and as sincere as that characterization could also be, it’s dramatically inert. For as keenly as Wright’s path represents Mussolini’s bombastic flash because the plot ticks off historic second after historic second, the story tied to them can really feel repetitive, acquainted, and hole.
What that leaves is an eight-hour collection with the emotional impression of watching the information. The message is effective and pressing — nobody’s disputing the necessity to establish Nazis so Indiana Jones can immediately punch them in the mouth (figuratively talking) — however the packaging of that message does little to deepen our understanding for or appreciation of the anti-fascist movement. Mussolini was Trump earlier than Trump, and Trump is the trendy Mussolini. OK. No argument right here. What else ya acquired?
Grade: B-
“Mussolini: Son of the Century” is now out there on MUBI.
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