Vincere,an Italian word for English,is a film that is based on the tragic lives of Benito Mussolini's first wife,Ida Dalser and their son,Benito Albino.It features the Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida and Filippo Timi in a dual role as Mussolini himself and his son,Benito Albino as an adult together with Fausto Russo Alesi,Michela Cescon and Pier Giorgio Bellocchio.Marco Bellocchio directs.It tells the story of Ida, who fell in love with the future Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.She supported him while he was unemployed as she shares his dream in life that involves triumphantly leading the Italian masses away from monarchy.She believes wholeheartedly in his ideals and his future as the leader of Italy that she sells everything she has to fuel the development of his newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia.They got married around 1914. She bore Mussolini a son named Benito Albino, before the outbreak of World War I.While the two fell in love,he quickly switches spiritual and political allegiances from an atheistic socialist to a deeply Catholic fascist because an, allegiance with the Vatican will allow him to wrest and retain control over Italy's government.Following his political ascendancy in 1925,the marriage certificate disappears and Ida learns that he has married Rachele Guidi with whom he had a daughter.She unwisely begins to protest the situation persistently that she was forced into house arrest and then shoved permanently Ida and their son into an insane asylum which determined her fate and the future of her young son. The film ended stating that Ida died in an asylum of brain hemorrhages;her son died as well in 1942 at an asylum after repeated coma-inducing injections; and Mussolini was killed by his enemies.This is a definitely one of the best Italian films I have ever seen.Mezzogiorno provides a great performance as Ida as well as Timi,who definitely will mesmerize the viewer as the ambitious young Mussolini and his insane son as an adult particularly when imitates his father's speech among his friends.Although the story started very well and it loses steam when both Ida and Benito Albino becomes mentally ill,the performances on the lead stars will keep us involved in the film.It also has a great cinematic lesson that worship of false leaders can lead to both personal breakdown and national collapse. Added to that,the film has a lot of passionate and emotional moments despite the fact that it can be incoherent at times especially if one is not well- versed with Italian history and the life of the late Fascist dictator.But overall,it is a can't miss film.Definitely,highly recommended.

The beginning of the XXIst Century gave Italy the well-needed reminder of the realities of Mussolini's reign of power. After a storm of revisionism came the story of Ida Dalser, Mussolini's secret lover and possible wife, who suffered state persecution during his march to power. Given Italy has seemingly forgotten the legacy of Mussolini in chemical-warfare annihilated Ethiopia, a more personal account of the man's cruelty seems to have been a necessity.Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), obsessively in love with the indomitable and vigorous Mussolini (Filippo Timi), throws her life at his door during the heydays of the First World War, offering not only herself, but also all her belongings to fund Mussolini's party newspaper. Albeit no concrete proof of this exists (only indirect evidence regarding Mussolini's son using the phrase "his wife Ida Dalser") they most likely married in 1914, only for Mussolini to betray her trust and love by wedding Rachele Guidi (Michela Cescon). In the meantime Ida bears Mussolini's only son Benito Albino, a child disowned by his father to suffer the ignominy of being a bastard. As time unfolds and the position of Mussolini strengthens Ida and her child become a unwanted presence, which threatens to derail the career of the future power-crazed dictator. Ida's compulsive and unremitting love for Mussolini persists through time, despite her being a woman scorned, thus causing her to become a national risk, who must be locked away. Ostensibly both Ida and her son die locked up in mental asylums, a tightly kept state secret, which must be disposed of."Vincere" fails to follow typical biographical structure, instead flowing through history with style and imagery, interspersed with archive material and frequenting us with visits to the cinema (in true European cinephile fashion). Events are essentially told linearly, but visually stylish flashbacks fill in spaces and ask questions on uncertain facts. The first half of the movie is a captivating victorious piece of cinema, accentuated by two tour de force performances by Mezzogiorno and Timi. The latter provides a forceful and believable performance of the Italian fascist, whose presence alone suddenly supplies apt justification to how he came to power. Timi also plays youthful Benito Albino, where he punctuates the movie with a heart-wrenching, powerful pastiche of Benito Mussolini after being locked up in an asylum. This however is trumped by a spectacular display by Mezzogiorno, compulsive lover repudiated by her husband and ultimately led to her downfall by the state. Shifting from youthful enthralment to verging on mental decrepitude Ida is portrayed masterfully and memorably.Nonetheless the movie falls apart about halfway, as focus diverts from the love affair itself and shifts towards the deadly fallout. Whereas the initial part of the movie captivates, while enraging with a mesmerising biographical portrayal, the second half starts to dwell on Ida's time at the asylum, which is cinematographically fruitless, as well as delivers countless unnecessary melodramatic scenes, which unnecessarily test viewer's patience. Amongst these a scene worthy of ridicule, as Ida gains a few moments of respite from her inevitable fate, wherein the whole town gathers to applaud her in a corny Hollywood fashioned culmination.Some of the storytelling is also off, as focus is placed strongly on imagery, film structure and less on viewer-proofing the understandability. For a lengthy period of the movie Ida is under the protection of one Riccardo Paicher, but questions on as to who this mysterious defender is are only answered towards the end, whereas a simple scene stating that this is Ida's brother-in-law would not have decapitated Bellochio's artistic endeavours.

I found this movie extremely absorbing, from beginning to end. It's true what other critics have observed that the real Mussolini in the old newsreels looks quite different from the actor personifying him, and the sudden confrontations between one and the other are quite unsettling. Could it be that recreating this historical newsreels with this actor as Mussolini was not possible due to the insufficient budget? Or maybe the director wanted to show us the real Mussolini to give us a good idea about the individual? Another confusing issue: The actor playing Mussolini also plays his adult son. And we don't get to see the final days of this dictator, when he was involved with Clara (Claretta) Petacci, his last lover, twenty eight years younger and executed with him (and both corpses hanged upside down in the public square). The photography and the camera work are exquisite, as are the lighting --absolute perfection-- the acting --masterful-- and the music --excellent. Very somber movie, shot most of the time in heavy darkness; there is no comic relief whatsoever, not even light humor, but then, the story is extremely dark and tragic, something that could have come out from a Dorothy Parker story.

Despite the inexplicable gushings from other reviewers, this is simply a bad movie; the directing, writing, acting, photography and music all bad in their own way. The first 45 minutes of the movie are confusing with no purpose; the movie jumps back and forth from different years making it almost impossible to get rolling and impenetrable to understand. By the time, Giovanna Mezzigiona is confined to a mental hospital (the last half of the movie) we just don't care, and nothing is added to the film. The film could have worked much better as a chronological story; how she met Mussolini, their subsequent relationship and should have ended with her confinement. The end credits could have told us that she never saw Mussolini again. There was absolutely no drama in the hour of the story during which she is confined. The movie tried (and failed) to do too many things: History, world wars, journalism socialism, Fascism, romance, betrayal, to name a few, and did them all poorly. The movie starts chaotically and never gets into any rhythm. The beginning was so bad that it resembled a student film. I hated the idea that the first part of the film was shot in such dark colors (it wasn't as if this was about a journey to light); in fact, it would have been better to start with a lighter palette and grow darker as both Mussolini rise and Mezzagiona's commitment follow. The music was way too intrusive and only added to the pain of watching this movie. The acting was also poor. (Mezzigiona is a major Italian actress and yet has a persistent habit in recent films of failing to connect with the audience and getting us to care about her character) Fellow IMDBers beware! This is a big whiff.