The March on Rome

Mark Cousins’s dynamic and entirely arresting documentary essay, with his distinctive collage of photos, clips and narrative voiceover, returns us to the grisly founding myth of European fascism for its 100th birthday: Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922: his ragged march of blackshirts from Naples to the capital. [--] Cousins also discusses the part played by the fledgling artform of cinema in promoting Mussolini’s supposed glamour and prestige, and in bringing its own delirious futurist excitement into alignment with fascism. Particularly, Cousins expertly deconstructs A Noi! or Us! by Umberto Paradisi, the propaganda film that created the mythology of the march and exaggerated its size and popular acclaim.

Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian