‘Fiume o Morte!’ Review: Irreverent Contemporary Reenactment of a Fascist Takeover Exposes the Absurdity of History
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic 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.
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