Vincere

Vincere was an amazing piece of history which combined newsreels from the 30s and 40s with created scenes of the rise of Mussolini which came at a time when Italians were ripe for a takeover by fascists. Mussolini filled that bill. The film also showed Benito's fall into corruption via his relationship with one of his mistresses who foolishly sold everything to finance his cause. She bore him a son whose life ended in the hell of mental illness/insanity. The film was well-done showing the politics of Benito M. and his rapid demise. Interestingly he seemed to represent -- to me -- the current dictator of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. And that makes me wonder when beautiful Italy will be rid of self-serving dictators. The citizens deserve honest politicians and politics, not degenerate mafioso.

A bit of history -- Mussolini's mistreess/wife and their child. Too many dark scenes for me with actual events blended into the story. That's the downside. On the upside, this is history I did not know. Or I should say, I knew Mussolini had many mistresses, but did not know he had a wife and child erased from historical Italian documents. Will I watch this movie again, probably not.

I really loved this movie. Have seen others about Benito but this has them beat by far. Actress is beautiful. Very well acted by both.

In my humble view, this is a side and insignificant story---A woman who claimed to be Mussolini's wife and mother of his first son, claims which she was unable to proof. The question is, in what way is this story important? Why would people need to learn about this lady's case? It is impossible not to feel sorry for her ordeals and her son's tragic end but it tells little about Italy or even Mussolini. If the idea was to illustrate the degree of repression during the fascist regime, the movie failed to do so. Some degree of repression is the background to the story of this lady whose emotional stability is questionable at all times.Mussolini was a second rate dictator who got his country into a war it was unprepared for. Italy's modest infrastructure was destroyed and the noble values of its young generations was abused and their dreams frustrated. This is the only story when it comes to fascism in Italy.I bought it, do not make the same mistake.

thanks for this product great buying from the seller

Excellent story.

The relationship between the Italian people and its political leaders is a complicated one that has been tackled recently by a number of Italian filmmakers, resulting in films as diverse as Paolo Sorrentino's  Il Divo  on Giulio Andreotti and Nanni Moretti's satire on Silvio Berlusconi in  The Caiman . Perhaps the greatest and most political of modern-day Italian directors, Marco Bellocchio takes on arguably an even more complex subject in Vincere, one whose relationship with the Italian people is even more difficult to define - that of Benito Mussolini.Typically however, from the director who found poetic resonance in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of elder statesman Aldo Moro by members of the Red Brigade in  Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte) , Vincere is far from a straightforward biopic. Bellocchio approaches his subject from a most unconventional angle, using the buried episode of Mussolini's secret first marriage to Ida Dalser, a marriage that would result in the birth of a child - unacknowledged by Mussolini - and the incarceration of Dalser in an insane asylum as Mussolini's rise to power called for a certain rewriting of his personal history. In their marriage, Bellocchio manages to examine the complicated nature of relationships between Italian men and women, and through it, say much about the nature of power in a wider historical and political context.That still makes Vincere sound fairly conventional when in reality the film is much more complex in its structure and visual language. The relationship between Dalser and the dark, silent, forceful young Mussolini can seem as unfathomable as his move from militant socialism to fascism, and Bellocchio doesn't make it easy for the viewer to make sense of the contradictions, schizophrenically dividing the film in stylistic terms, the tall, dark and handsome Filippo Timi disappearing in the first half to be replaced by documentary footage of the real Mussolini, short, fat, ugly and bald in the second half. It makes no sense unless you consider what you are viewing is through the eyes of a young woman in the heightened emotional state of love in the earlier part, and betrayal in second.It's Giovanna Mezzogiorno's performance that holds this together, preventing the film slipping over into empty stylistic excess (like Sorrentino's Il Divo) by underpinning it with strong meaningful human sentiments in her remarkably sensitive reading of Dalser. Whatever one makes of this puzzle of a film, which is extremely complicated in its range of political and cultural references (such as the way the Futurism art movement is integrated into the fabric of the film itself), and in what it says about the nature of the Italian people, Dalser's experience and Mezzagiorno's performance ensures that at the very least, Vincere presents a fascinating episode in recent political history through a touching portrait of a woman's blind love for a dangerous man.

Some amazing, poetic imagery, a great rich, almost operatic score, and a hyper-emotional yet always grounded lead performance by GiovannaMezzogiomo make this film work.The story of Mussolini's cruelly rejected and forgotten wife and son (they were a problem politically, since it turned out he was already married) is certainly interesting, and a glimpse at the toll of dictatorship on a much more human scale. It was also gripping to see Mussolini portrayed as more complex and dangerously charismatic than the buffoonish cartoon he has become in the public's mind.That said, for me the film felt long at 125 minutes. The repetition with which Ida Dalser is locked away in various mental institutions and studiously ignored is at first powerful, but ultimately wearying.Perhaps I was over prepared, as so many critics declared this Bellocchio's best film in years, perhaps ever. But then, I was always a bit out of sync with the critical establishment re Bellocchio. I'm also not obsessed with "Fists in Pocket" his first film, widely regarded as a masterpiece. As with "Vincere" I liked it, but felt it milked one tone too long. I'm more drawn to his more subtle and complex work like "Good Morning, Night" and "Henry IV".But I will re-watch this, and I'm happy to have discovered this director's wonderful, unique, slightly surreal, yet still emotional work, even if it took me too many years to do so.

I like watching films based on real life events (albeit they are not always 100% historically accurate of course) so I found this a very interesting film about a little-known area of Mussolini’s life – his marriage to his first wife Ida Dalser in around 1912 and the birth of their son, Benito Albino. Little known because he went to extraordinary lengths to keep them a secret and later, when he became Il Duce, tried to erase their very existence from the record books. His Fascist state continued to harass and persecute Ida and Benito Junior for the rest of their lives and, as far as the world knew, his first wife was Rachele Guidi whom he married (bigamously as it turned out) in 1915.Once Mussolini came to power he ordered his regime to destroy every record of his first marriage and it was only the fact that a child payment order from the city of Milan survived unnoticed in the archives, that his first marriage was ever known about at all.The recreation of 1920s and 30s Fascist Italy is beautifully done cinematographically and a clever conceit is that, although in the early scenes Mussolini is played by an actor (Filippo Timi), in the second half of the film Mussolini is represented by actual black and white newsreels of the real Mussolini to represent the fact that after a certain point, Ida didn’t see Mussolini in person, only on the newsreels like everyone else.On the downside, at over two hours long (128 minutes), I felt it went on a tad too long and the second half drags a bit more than the early scenes where there is more plot movement.Although I enjoyed this film, the subject matter is emotionally harrowing and I wouldn’t describe it as a fun watch. For that reason, probably unfairly, I am marking it down slightly.The DVD arrived on time and was well packaged.

Excellent film, we find out the part of Benito Mussolini from the younger years. Very interesting, touching and also dark cinematographic work.

Sad story of Mussolini's first wife and her fight for recognition for herself and for her son. Wonderfully acted and beautifully filmed.

Great movie .

It was absorbing, informative and superbly directed and acted, especially by Giovanna Mezzogiorno. It conjures up the atmosphere of fascist Italy.