All I knew about Benito Mussolini was that he was an Italian dictator killed by Italian partisans in 1945 and his body was hung upside-down in the public square as retaliation against him for his massacre of partisans who were sometimes hung in this fashion; this movie depicts that Mussolini was in fact a bigamist, a side of him that wasn’t well-known. Ida Dalser fell in love with young Mussolini who was full of ambition, supported him as his first “wife” economically while he was a novice journalist, and bore him a son. However, the existence of this woman was completely concealed and erased by the government that Mussolini commanded and, in the end, she was sent to a mental hospital until she died; her son was also sent to mental hospital and died at the age of 26. The movie credits at the end say that there is no proof that she officially married Mussolini and it is unclear whether Ida really was married to Mussolini or only that she carried the delusion of being married to Mussolini due to a mental illness.
In 2005, journalist Marco Zeni published two books—La moglie di Mussolini and L’ultimo filò –based on his own investigation revealing the existence of Ida Dalser; a TV documentary about Ida Dalser based on these was televised and greatly shocked the people of Italy. In 2009, Italian movie maestro Marco Bellocchio directed the movie adaption about her life and this movie caused a big reaction across the whole world. In an interview, Marco Bellocchio was asked why he decided to make this movie about Ida. He answered this question with the following:
“It is because Ida wasn’t known at all. Even I learned of her by chance. I unintentionally learned by watching the documentary and reading the newspaper, but even historians didn’t really know her private life then at all and it just recently surfaced. Although I thought I knew fascism very well, I was very much intrigued and surprised that I didn’t know about her at all, and thus I made this movie.”
It seems natural that I didn’t know since this Italian with extensive knowledge did not know. Director Marco Bellocchio was not interested in depicting Mussolini as a fascist; his passion for making this movie was to focus on Ida, a strong woman who didn’t cave to authority as she attempted to gain true “victory”. He speaks of this in the following:
“My reason for wanting to make this movie about this woman is very simple. It is because Ida Dasler is a hero. I was not interested in exposing or highlighting the evils of a fascist administration. But I was very moved by this woman named Ida who refused to give in. She was completely alone for years. She—perhaps without noticing or involuntarily—made enemies of not only the Supreme Leader, but nearly all of the people of Italy. She deeply loved Mussolini for himself even when he was young and still anonymous. She loved him when nobody cared about him. She protected him when he was penniless, was criticized, and faced contempt. After that, their positions reversed. Everyone loved him when he became Supreme Leader while she was shut out and everyone turned their back on her. But she still couldn’t break out her reckless love; she didn’t notice who had the upper hand and thus made enemies of all of Italy.
“At that time, Italy supported the fascist doctrine and it was Mussolini’s world. This woman Ida—bravely opposing the Supreme Leader, refusing to compromise, and remaining a rebel until the end—reminds us of Antigone, a tragic heroine appearing in Greek mythology, and closely resembles Aida, the heroine in an Italian melodrama. This movie is a melodrama that depicts the mental strength of one anonymous Italian woman. She gives in to no power, so in this sense, it is her that truly wins. She had strength, bravery, and, in a way, foolishness to face the world. This is why her story is historically valuable to me.
“To us today, fascism is absurd and irrational and we laugh when we see it, but knowing about her life makes us remember that fascism is a cruel dictatorship, not a funny story. In order to execute this insane paradigm, anyone who obstructed it was crushed and countless innocent people were victimized for the sake of the system.”
Director Marco Bellocchio’s intention is simple, but I wonder if his intention is successfully transmitted to the audience. In this movie, it is unclear whether she is really Mussolini’s wife and the movie may make the audience think that she died insane with these delusions. Without certainty, the audience that continues to watch on and on for two hours may wonder what the point is to keep watching her insanity. If the director wants to depict Ida’s victory, I think this ambiguous way of depicting is not the best method to accomplish his intention. If contemporary Italians have the freedom of speech and behavior to the point where he could say “fascism is absurd and irrational and we laugh,” I wonder why he doesn’t show clearly, based on historical facts, how the lives of this mother and child who could have been killed were completely concealed by authorities. This movie’s cinematography is certainly charming and I can see that he was aiming for an artistic movie, as seen by the incorporation of silent and historical footage, but I feel he could have done something different to more effectively dedicate it to this anonymous heroine. After watching this movie, I can’t help but think that making a straight-forward movie that is able to clearly transmit the facts to the whole audience would be the best way to honor this anonymous heroine who was totally neglected.