Vincere (2009) NYT Critics' Pick

[lsanderson]

Filippo Timi and Giovanna Mezzogiorno in “Vincere.”
II Duce as Young Lover: The Making of a Dictator
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: March 19, 2010

“The mass loves strong men,” Benito Mussolini once said. “The mass is female.” In “Vincere,” a sustained, alternatingly exhausting and aesthetically exhilarating howl of a film, the veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio brilliantly personalizes Mussolini’s rise to power through a fictional retelling of his seduction and catastrophically violent betrayal of his reputed first wife, Ida Dalser. Like much of Italy, Dalser abandoned herself to him body and soul. The film’s title — a reference to a popular Italian Fascist song — means to win, as in to defeat, vanquish, surpass. “Win, win, win!” Fascist soldiers would sing, as Il Duce aroused the populace. “At any cost!” More