By Hanna Rantala
VENICE (Reuters) – The meteoric rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1920s Italy has hit the Venice Film Festival in the shape of a TV series, providing a much-needed reminder of the threat posed by populist politics, its British director said.
“M – Son of the Century” was directed by Joe Wright and shows Mussolini clamber out of obscurity to become prime minister in just a few short years – an unscrupulous but charismatic chancer who took advantage of a fractured society to seize power.
His brutal story still resonates today with far-right parties, some inspired by his fascist doctrine, once again growing in popularity across Europe, and beyond, Wright said.
“That really is the danger, that really is what’s happening now all over the world. And so to go back to the very roots of that movement, of that way of dealing with the public, felt incredibly important,” Wright told Reuters.
His previous credits include the 2017 biopic “The Darkest Hour” about Mussolini’s nemesis Winston Churchill.
Wright said it helped to bring a foreigner’s perspective to Mussolini, who is still viewed in a sympathetic light by many Italians, despite the disasters he inflicted on his homeland.
“There are so many stories, so many narratives, false narratives that have been built up around Mussolini in Italy,” he said.
The eight-part TV series is based on a best-selling 2018 book by Italian author Antonio Scurati. It starts in an almost light-hearted fashion, with Mussolini presented as something of a buffoon before his black-shirted thugs take centre stage.
“Let’s see it (the series) like a vaccine, in some way, because through the show and the book of course … you can see how democracy can die,” said co-screenwriter Stefano Bises.
Although it is a fictional account of a bleak chapter in Italian history, a lot of what Mussolini says in the series, such as his speeches in parliament, are verbatim, lending authenticity to the script.
Mussolini is played by Italian actor Luca Marinelli, who won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 for his portrayal of a poor, aspiring writer in “Martin Eden”.
To get ready for this new role he had to gain 20 kg (44 pounds), shave his hair and wear dark contact lenses, making him almost unrecognisable from his normal self.
“I brought the weight and this hair style back home with me, so it was a fairly demanding seven months,” he said, adding that it had also been a shock to incarnate a man reviled by many.
“I’ve grown up with and come from a family that is anti-fascist and that certainly created a huge tension within me at first,” he said. “But then I decided to take on the project because I knew that the end product would be like this.”
“M – Son of the Century” is one of four TV series shown in their entirety at Venice, underlining the growing importance of television within the film industry.
(Writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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