On SBS On Demand (with lots of advertisements) - Rod Bishop recommends MUSSOLINI: SON OF THE CENTURY (aka M. Il figlio del secolo), (Joe Wright, Italy/France 2025)

Benito Mussolini (Luca Marinelli), Mussolini:Son of the Century

This is a long way from the restrained and tasteful Joe Wright of Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina and the criminally underrated The Soloist.

Let loose on an eight-part adaptation of the first volume of Antonio Scurati’s biography of Benito Mussolini, Wright uses a highly theatrical Luca Marinelli to play Mussolini as a fascist dictator who continually breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience as though we are the second most important member of the cast.

Wright mashes up Mussolini’s rise to power between 1919 and 1925 with crash-cut documentary footage (all excellent). He traces Mussolini’s fight with Gabriele D’Annunzio, arguably the true founder of Italian fascism, and someone always accompanied by a splendid samurai. He includes Marinetti and The Futurists and their short-lived fascination with the Blackshirts (the Fasces of Combat). He makes the fascist rallies look like mosh pits at punk concerts; and he includes sadist ultra violence that could make A Clockwork Orange blush.

With near identical skull and cross bone attire to their German neighbours, there’s an aria from M Butterfly, passages reminiscent of Fassbinder and Brecht, and Mussolini continuously stirring up his Blackshirts, (he calls them “the dogs”), to assault liberal democracy; declaring it “dead after one hundred years”. He even turns to the camera to declare: “Make Italy Great Again”.

There’s also a lot of shouting. These are Italians after all. 

No matter how chaotic Wright’s style feels, it’s always riveting to watch.