Which is not a stranger for the right period drama, which includes films like Pride & Prividis (2005), Atonement (2007), and Anna Karenina (2012). He is also not a stranger to create projects around controversial historical and political figures, with the darkest hours based on Winston Churchill’s life and time in his Ovre (based on Winston Churchill’s life and time). But with Mussolini: The son of the century, he is challenging himself afresh.
The eight-episode show takes the founder of Fascism with a blunt, frantic force and dives into his psyche with innovative technical skills. The 2018 novel M: Based on the century’s son by Antonio Scruti, the show shows Luka Marinelli as Benito Mussolini and reveals her political and personal concerns. In a special interview with Hindustan Times, the Academy Award-nomineed writer and director opened about his interest in the subject, the demands demanded, and more.
‘He was really someone who was interested in control’
In the show, Mussolini is presented directly, as he faces the camera breaking the fourth wall. Who talks about the decision and says, “We really talked a lot about addressing the camera, and who he was addressing … We had the grand idea that he was talking to history, or he was talking to his soul. Finally, we really came back to simplify something, that he was talking to the audience.
He continues, “As the show moves forward, he loses control of his story. It goes away from it. By the eighth episode, things she is rapidly provoking, as much as she can control, and so it seems an interesting depiction of power. First, first of all, these toxic, male, strength-and-sucking characters are so much that they can control all.
The director shared how the project came to him. He said, “It was 2021, when I was talking to the great Italian filmmaker Lorenzo Maly, who said that if I would be interested in doing this project about Mussolini,” he says. “I said that I would only be interested in doing so if I was to do all eight episodes. I was not just interested in installing it and going away.”
Which tells how the word ‘fascism’ and its meaning developed, as it grew up. “When we were children, we explained a lot to the word ‘fascist’, without understanding what it meant. As a teenagers, the police were fascist, school teachers were fascist,” he says. “But we did not really know what the word meant, and then as we emerged in public consciousness … It was important to understand where it came from. What it really means, what were the root reasons, what were the implications moving forward … and so it was really a study of the word and the word that made that word.”
‘Fascism is not about anything; This is against everything ‘
The show creates oppositeness between fascism and socialism in the first episode, where socialists are described as those who are only waiting. They never work. Asked if he thinks that fascism as an idea is also concluded, and continues to do so, with this aggressive perception of confrontation that says, “Yes, this is. At one point in the show, Mussolini also says that fascism is nothing. It is nothing. It is all. Or at least some of them!
‘Luka Marinelly is a complete talent!’
Italian actor Luka Marinelly, who plays Mussolini in the show, performs a tremendous performance. Who talked about his cooperation and said, “He looks nothing like Mussolini! Still that is, I think, a complete talent. I will cast the most talented actor who looks closest to Mussolini than someone. He is an incredibly powerful imagination, and if he imagines something, he also enlishes the audience that he fantasies that he is very hurry. And, honestly, one of the best people is likely.
The director proceeds to expand its initial approach to the subject and requires an energy for its action. He says, “What no one actually does, starts with a piece of subjects. What is about the show, and here, the appearance of the show is guided by themes,” they say.
“Here, there is violence and toxic masculinity in subjects, which is political to become fascism, so it required that kind of energy. As it was done, as it was done, like the cultural world around Mussolini, like the cultural world, I was watching a lot in Futureism. So Futureism was coming out of the First World War … It was also going to save the world.”
‘Concerns of the population of that time- as of now- are valid’
He proceeds to add how his cooperation with Tom Rowlands of Chemical Brothers who score the show. “So the aesthetics of futurism were reflected by the music of Techno Brothers, with whom I have a long support. Once I made the choice of that music, the type of visual aesthetics fell. So yes, a lot of music was guided.”
Has this show been given any new insight to the director as to how fascism as a concept has managed to leak into contemporary global politics? Who says, “Yes. I think I went through a period in my thirty decade when I became less interested in politics. I got the interest back during Brexit in 2016, when I suddenly felt the responsibility of getting caught up with what was going on in the world.”
“What Mussolini did, he invented far-flung populistism. What he did to his newspaper, went on like this. The concern of the population is as at that time- as it is valid. But then he exploited those legitimate concerns and exploited them their own ends. We see that we see that it is now worldwide.
Mussolini: Century’s son releases on Mubi India on 10 September,
