BENITO -- THE RISE AND FALL OF MUSSOLINI. The feeling of being in pre-World War I Italy and Switzerland is quite well done and unfortunately the only redeeming feature I can see in this lengthy but incomplete film. As the new editor of his newspaper "Il Popolo d'Italiano" the film unexpectedly lets us down at the point where Mussolini's career is ascendant and he fights a duel.
Maybe there are another two DVD's on the way to me to reveal the later, more important episodes in this man's life? (I'm not going to hold my breath on this, however.) Antonio Banderas as an actor is passable but he has not become Benito Mussolini by the widest stretch of the imagination.
Where are the bombastic mannerisms and violence of the Duce? They are sadly non-existent in the performance of the rather genteel, Errol Flynn-like Banderas, and despite showing Mussolini's humble beginnings Banderas really does not behave as a man of the people. It would have been hard to find
an actor whose physical likeness or his characterization was less like the real Il Duce. Granted this is one of those "Docu-dramas" but even with this leeway, his performance is sadly lacking. How could these Italian filmmakers, whose familiarity with, and descendants of the legacy of Fascism have made this flick? Only the least important historical facts in Mussolini's life are shown, while those really significant are swept under the rug; namely the period from his newspaper editorship until the end of his life some 30 years later. Totally ignored is his military service in WWI, the rise of the Fascist Party, the March on Rome, Fascist Italy between the wars, the Lateran Accords, conquests of Ethiopia and Albania, Axis partnership with Nazi Germany and Italy's participation in WWII, and Mussolini's ultimate downfall, capture and execution by Communist partisans. Instead we are exposed to hours of endless petty debates by Socialist factions over "the betterment of the worker" that achieve nothing -- those debates that are historically revered by leftist organizations and by the way, all the while the "comrades" are demonizing the Catholic Church, the monarchy, and indeed, anybody and everybody holding any power and who are politically to the right of themselves -- the extreme Left. I have mercifully awarded this film three stars. Quite likely, Comrade Josef Stalin would have given it a big ten. All it needs is a Russian cast and it could instead have been a flick made by Soviet Russia's "SovFilm".
Maybe there are another two DVD's on the way to me to reveal the later, more important episodes in this man's life? (I'm not going to hold my breath on this, however.) Antonio Banderas as an actor is passable but he has not become Benito Mussolini by the widest stretch of the imagination.
Where are the bombastic mannerisms and violence of the Duce? They are sadly non-existent in the performance of the rather genteel, Errol Flynn-like Banderas, and despite showing Mussolini's humble beginnings Banderas really does not behave as a man of the people. It would have been hard to find
an actor whose physical likeness or his characterization was less like the real Il Duce. Granted this is one of those "Docu-dramas" but even with this leeway, his performance is sadly lacking. How could these Italian filmmakers, whose familiarity with, and descendants of the legacy of Fascism have made this flick? Only the least important historical facts in Mussolini's life are shown, while those really significant are swept under the rug; namely the period from his newspaper editorship until the end of his life some 30 years later. Totally ignored is his military service in WWI, the rise of the Fascist Party, the March on Rome, Fascist Italy between the wars, the Lateran Accords, conquests of Ethiopia and Albania, Axis partnership with Nazi Germany and Italy's participation in WWII, and Mussolini's ultimate downfall, capture and execution by Communist partisans. Instead we are exposed to hours of endless petty debates by Socialist factions over "the betterment of the worker" that achieve nothing -- those debates that are historically revered by leftist organizations and by the way, all the while the "comrades" are demonizing the Catholic Church, the monarchy, and indeed, anybody and everybody holding any power and who are politically to the right of themselves -- the extreme Left. I have mercifully awarded this film three stars. Quite likely, Comrade Josef Stalin would have given it a big ten. All it needs is a Russian cast and it could instead have been a flick made by Soviet Russia's "SovFilm".