The March on Rome

Aiming for a coup, fascist Black Shirts marched from Naples to Rome in 1922, the demonstration leading to the ascension of Benito Mussolini as Italy’s dictator. Mark Cousins explores this pivotal moment in a commanding documentary that weaves together world and cinema history. Actor Alba Rohrwacher appears as a witness to Il Duce’s regime, but most of the film is culled from archival footage. Cousins’s centerpiece is Umberto Paradisi’s propagandistic record of the march, A noi!, which the filmmaker dissects, exposing a foundational myth of Italian fascism and demonstrating the power of lies to alter history. Cousins masterfully connects the past to the present, making manifest the adage that those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.