Review: The March on Rome

by Elena Lazic

02/09/2022 - VENICE 2022: Mark Cousins’ poetic touch is an odd fit for a film about something as serious as the rise of fascism

A hundred years have elapsed since the March on Rome that saw Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party take over Italy; a little over a year has passed since the 6 January invasion of the United States Capitol by a group of Trump supporters unhappy about the results of the presidential election. When Mark Cousins first establishes a parallel between these two events early on in his new documentary The March on Rome [+see also:
trailer
interview: Mark Cousins
film profile], premiering as a special opening event, out of competition, in the Giornate degli Autori at the Venice International Film Festival, the effect is alarming, not convincing: though they may at first glance seem comparable, the former was a relatively innocuous moment that did not prepare Italy or the world for what Mussolini would then do with his power, while the latter was the dying gasp of a losing regime and appeared much more significant than it soon turned out to be. Only by the end of the film does the idea of a lineage from one to the other make a little more sense.

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But even then, and throughout the film, the feelings of apprehension and scepticism never fully subside as Cousins builds his argument more by paying attention to uncanny echoes and resonances through history, than to sequences of facts or the logical building blocks of complex arguments. As in his other films, Cousins is riffing on his own ideas, on images he sees, going off at tangents and establishing playful connections between sound, image and narration. But it’s an approach that is inherently selective, drawing beautiful constellations between certain elements and ignoring those that do not fit – an approach that feels ill-suited to a film about something as complex as political and social history.

Not being an expert on Mussolini or Italian history, this writer often wondered what Cousins might have left out, if anything, in his loosely structured look at the events of the March on Rome and its aftermath. One might wish one could pause the film to check some of the rather big statements made by the director, or see what other aspects of the march he may have ignored or glossed over. It is when Cousins is at his most meticulous and precise that the film is at its most engaging.

Much of The March on Rome is a close analysis by Cousins of the 1923 propaganda film A Noi by Umberto Paradisi, which misrepresents the October 1922 march more than it documents it. With simple editing tricks, what was in reality a muddy, rainy, poorly attended march is transformed into a triumphant and sunny celebration. Small crowds in Rome are made to look three times bigger than they really were; and Il Duce, who was absent for much of it, now appears at all the right moments, in all the right places.

It’s a neat lesson in cinema and propaganda, but what to make of Cousins’ claim that A Noi is what has inspired fascists around the world throughout history and continues to do so today? Like much else in the film, we are asked to simply take his word for it. In that context, Cousins’ usual poetic techniques therefore seem much less innocent than in most of his other work, as they appear almost purposefully designed to distract our attention away from those nagging questions and worries. Alongside his usual way with words and rhetorical questions (wondering what characters seen in archive footage might have been thinking or feeling), we also have images of modern-day Rome playfully mirroring his narration, for no purpose other than to charm us. Fictional segments interspersed throughout the film also show Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher as an Italian woman from the 1920s and 1930s, giving body and voice to the hope and disillusionment that many contemporary Italians might have felt as fascism arrived, ravaged their lives, then disappeared. But as evocative as those interruptions are, it is difficult not to wonder: how does he know?

The March on Rome was produced by Italy’s Palomar. The Italian distribution will be handled by I Wonder Pictures. The Match Factory is in charge of its international sales.

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