This is a very well done film but it takes considerable patience. It covers Mussolini's early socialist career in mind-numbing detail. American biopics usually oversimplify as they make historical characters better looking and sexier. While this Italian film may have done the latter it certainly wasn't simple. It is a very complex film that presumes a lot of prior knowledge. I haven't been so mystified since I saw Doctor Zhivago at the cinema at the tender age of 12.
You wait and wait for this Anakin Skywalker of early 20th century Italian politics to go over to the dark side. His conversion from Marxist socialism to fascism in the midst of the first world War is the one thing I would find most interesting, but it is a long time coming in this film.
One of the best things about the film is its matter-of-fact quality, The film does not seem to take sides. Is Mussolini some kind of hero? In view of his brutal career as a dictator later on, certainly not. In terms of his earlier concerns for the abuse of labor, perhaps he was. Very little is "explained". If I did not already know some of the intellectual and social tendencies of Marxism, then I would be rather lost. As it is, the film is a grand epic not only as a portrayal of the man, but a portrayal of Italian society and a time in Italian history. Like the world itself, the film is mysterious and deep.
You wait and wait for this Anakin Skywalker of early 20th century Italian politics to go over to the dark side. His conversion from Marxist socialism to fascism in the midst of the first world War is the one thing I would find most interesting, but it is a long time coming in this film.
One of the best things about the film is its matter-of-fact quality, The film does not seem to take sides. Is Mussolini some kind of hero? In view of his brutal career as a dictator later on, certainly not. In terms of his earlier concerns for the abuse of labor, perhaps he was. Very little is "explained". If I did not already know some of the intellectual and social tendencies of Marxism, then I would be rather lost. As it is, the film is a grand epic not only as a portrayal of the man, but a portrayal of Italian society and a time in Italian history. Like the world itself, the film is mysterious and deep.