A cartography of the Italian political landscape during the 1993 municipal and presidential campaigns. The leading contenders in Naples are Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra and her left wing rival Antonio Bassolino. "By the absence of any commentary as well as by its commitment, In the Name of the Duce resembles a documentary. Nonetheless, its fragmentary composition, its distance, its outside approach of the subject and, apart from the denunciation of corruption, the absence of political stands, give it a particular singularity. Alessandra Mussolini, whose campaign is at the heart of the film, and at its source, is presented in a minimal way: hardly a sixth of the film, under ten minutes. Alessandra is a decoy, a dummy-candidate. She herself is not the subject of the film-not to say that she does not have a real political substance-but it is rather her name, that of her grandfather. Hence, the entire film addresses the question: "what face should we give to this name, and what are the politics of this face?" Yann Lardeau, "Les Films d'Amos Gitai", unpublished |