Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Fiume o Morte!’ Review: Irreverent Contemporary Reenactment of a Fascist Takeover Exposes the Absurdity of History
At a time when fascist politics are much on the rise in certain parts of the world, Igor Bezinović’s highly creative documentary “Fiume o Morto!” serves as a reminder that even the most oppressive and vainglorious dictators can have markedly ephemeral legacies. The dictator in this case is Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated Italian poet and army officer who, in 1919, took it upon himself to occupy the politically disputed city of Fiume — now called Rijeka — and turn it, briefly and foolhardily, into the Italian Regency of Carnaro, an independent city-state with himself as Duce. The ludicrous hubris of this endeavor is laid bare in Bezinović’s film, which enlists over 300 residents of present-day Rijeka to dramatize D’Annunzio’s brief reign of terror with all the reverence it merits, which is to say none at all.
The result is both compelling and very amusing — a hybrid experiment akin to what U.S. docmaker Robert Greene achieved in his “Bisbee ’17,” pushed to more farcical ends. But substantial ideas underpin all the flippant historical cosplay, as Bezinović — himself a Croatian — ponders D’Annunzio’s reputation on either side of the Italo-Croatian border, and in turn the long-term societal effects of failed despots being either romanticized or forgotten entirely.
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Even as it keeps a jaundiced eye on the past, “Fiume o Morto!” — the title a dry reference to D’Annunzio’s obsolete military slogan “Fiume or death!” — finds room to celebrate the contemporary patchwork identity of a region that has belonged to multiple countries over the years, with the demographic and linguistic diversity that entails. After taking the top prize in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition, Bezinović’s first feature since 2017’s well-traveled “A Brief Excursion” should be a fixture of the year’s festival circuit, and is entertaining enough to attract general arthouse interest.
“My Italian colleagues told me not to mention fascism too much in the intro, so I’ll stop here,” says Bezinović in droll voiceover, after having narrated a condensed but evocative summary of Rijeka’s troubled history with the country next door — accompanying a slideshow of reclaimed city landmarks, including the pithily named Street of Victims of Fascism (formerly Via Roma). The tone is thus set for a documentary both playfully and critically engaged with how the past is reframed by successive generations, and how even in the present it splinters along political and geographical lines.
In central Rijeka, Bezinović conducts a series of sidewalk vox pop interviews asking people for their impressions of D’Annunzio — only to find, particularly among the younger people consulted, that the man who once violently claimed the city as his own isn’t recognized or remembered at all. Others’ recollections vary in sympathy, perhaps according to their own heritage or era of education: While many bluntly scorn him as a mere “fascist,” one older man adds that he was also “a great poet and lover.” These interviews also serve as casual casting sessions, with the filmmakers asking many of those questioned — regardless of their historical knowledge — if they’d like to participate in a dramatization of his takeover and subsequent downfall.
Some are chosen for their physical features — a mini-ensemble of bald non-professionals is lined up to play the follicularly challenged D’Annunzio at various stages of the coup — while others have useful linguistic abilities. “When I hear Fiumani, I hear a Rijeka that hasn’t existed for a very long time,” says one speaker of the fading Venetian dialect that was once standard in the city, her tone wistful but not exactly nostalgic. A bohemian-looking musician volunteers to play one of D’Annunzio’s soldiers, despite Bezinović’s observation that he seems more of an anarchist: “Plenty of that in the army,” the man quickly replies. Individual and ahistorical interpretations, after all, are largely the point of the exercise.
Beginning with D’Annunzio’s purposeful, revolution-minded journey from Venice to the border in 1919 and ending with his humiliated retreat 15 months later after a rash declaration of war on Italy, the film’s historical reenactments are achieved with keen amateur actors and narrators, period-appropriate costumes, and not much else in the way of resources. Shooting on location at the relevant Rijeka cites, scenes are staged and choreographed exactingly, using a vast archive of 10,000 photographs that the would-be leader had taken to document his would-be triumph. (The aspect ratio shrinks and swells to match their grandiose compositions.)
Anachronistic urban features and budgetary limitations, however, repeatedly undercut the authenticity of the exercise in ways that wittily highlight the gulf between then and now. Key speeches are faithfully delivered to an audience of two, not thousands; a scene of soldiers destructively revelling on a bridge is given a different spirit by ironic, out-of-time horseplay.
And yet Bezinović’s imperfectly restaged history proves, in its own way, quite immersive, not least in a contained recreation of the five-day “Bloody Christmas” battle that culminated in D’Annunzio admitting defeat — as we realize we’ve made an emotional investment in this city under siege. Returning to the far more Croatian-accented Rijeka of the present day is a relief, amplified by a coda in which the director somewhat gleefully demonstrates how few physical and architectural mementoes remain of D’Annunzio’s time in the city. Across the border in nearby Trieste, meanwhile, a recently erected statue honors the centenary of his occupation: a caustic reminder in this deceptively breezy, good-humored film that history isn’t only written by the victors.
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