Vincere, 2009

Less a biography on the early life of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini than a dissection into creating (and sustaining) a cult of personality, Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere is a textured, operatic, and incisive historical fiction based on the fate of Mussolini’s secret first wife, Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) who, along with their son, Benito Albino, were […]

Good Morning, Night, 2003

Based on the real-life kidnapping of President Aldo Moro by members of a terrorist organization known as the Red Brigade in 1978, Good Morning, Night is a compelling, thoughtful, and understatedly powerful film that captures the turmoil and uncertainty caused by Moro’s (Roberto Herlitzka) brazen kidnapping and the subsequent 53 days of frustratingly stalled and […]

My Mother’s Smile, 2002

A young boy named Leonardo (Alberto Mondini) distractedly paces outside his home within view of his quizzical mother Irene (Jacqueline Lustig) as he seemingly conducts an impassioned conversation with himself. Distressed by the overwhelming concept of an omniscient God (an idea that he has recently learned during his religion study hour at school) from whom […]

Fists in the Pocket, 1965

An off-screen male voice reads an anonymous note, meticulously assembled from clipped newsprint letters and addressed to a woman named Lucia (Jeannie MacNeil), bearing the scandalous information of a long-term affair between her fiancĂ© Augusto (Marino MasĂ©) and the note’s author in a possessive and desperate attempt to drive the unsuspecting young woman away. It […]