Movie Review: VINCERE

Italian movie hits mark with side story of Fascist Era and Dictator Benito Mussolini. Director Mezzogiorno artfully mixed archival footage from the pre-WW II era when the dictator was flexing his muscles and attempting to restore some lost glory to the Italian peninsula. The story is focused not on his regime, but on his private life and the shameful details of a love affair early during his rise to power. The relationship produced a child that was essentially rejected by his father. The mother was harassed by authorities and institutionalized with the complicity of the Vatican, a newly formed independent state as a result of the dictator's Lateran Treaty of 1929.
The sad quest of the abandoned mother and child illustrates the inconvenience of personal histories when confronted by powerful political forces. Mussolini had a public marraige and fathered 4 more children. Later, he took another mistress who died with him near the end of the world war.
The film ran more than 2 hours and 5 minutes and was accompanied by blaring sound effects. It could easily have been cut to less than 100 minutes w/o great loss. The acting was superb and the editing was effective in aiding the depiction of power: Church and State in combination. The close ties of the King of Italy and the government of the country itself with the Pope is readily understood with the footage from the period between the wars.
This historical docudrama is well worth the time and effort.
Rated by the Minister of Culture: ****!