Italian decadent poet and army general turned self-styled dictator Gabriele D’Annunzio occupied the seaport city of Fiume for fifteen months after World War I. It is this curious historical episode in the life of a man who loved strong-arm spectacle that Croatian documentarian Igor Bezinovic invites locals to re-enact in Fiume o morte!, which had its world premiere in the Tiger Competition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
This madcap and irreverent yet astute and politically trenchant intervention by Bezinovic into public space in his own hometown, which is now Rijeka and part of Croatia, is rigorously researched and assembled with agile punk-spirited invention. A masterclass in the potential of cinematic collaboration for combatting apathy over records of the past and disengagement from public life, the film is bound to be embraced by audiences with an appreciation of docs on the more formally adventurous side, particularly in its topical investigation of tyrannical power and personality cult.
Though D’Annunzio’s reign was brief, his flamboyant taste for making an impression led him to enlist a busy photography section to produce more than 10,000 photos of the occupation. Bezinovic, whose previous work includes The Blockade (2012), a documentary on student protest, and fictional Brief Excursion, about a trip to find medieval frescoes, has raided this astonishing trove of at times surreal images, and combined archival stills and footage with paintings, postcards, performed re-enactments, vox-pop streets interviews and recited texts. He impressively wrangles a dizzying array of material and formats into a intriguing and more or less chronological retelling that thrives on wry-humoured quirk and eccentric incident without losing sober sight of the deeper political questions of unmandated governance and civic resistance at play. His droll experiment in the dynamics of rule revisits the absurd antics of a controversial, proto-fascist figure who only some Croatian citizens can now recall, harnessing the collective imagination and participation as an antidote to erased memory.
No less than seven locals, from a municipal dustman to a veteran of Croatia’s war of independence, are cast to take turns at playing the bald-headed, sharply uniformed and Italian-speaking D’Annunzio. As he rolls toward town in 1919 in a red Fiat sports car followed by a truck convoy of grenadiers, he is stopped by an Italian general, played by the frontman of the punk band Izet Medosevic and Borgie, which launches into a track on the roadside in the kind of irreverent, anarchic flourish that invigorates Bezinovic’s whole project. Locals take turns recounting events in voiceover, a helpful device to guide us through the chaotic goings-on in Fiume, as D’Annunzio exploits a diplomatic tussle over whether Yugoslavia or Italy would rule Fiume to set up his claim to the city, before he is ousted in 1920’s “Bloody Christmas.”
As D’Annunzio takes up residence with his whippet in the stately Governor’s Palace, built under Hungarian rule, we follow his hubristic experiments in fashioning his own state and constitution, while thousands of Italian officers flood in, and Croatian families flee. Amid the political unrest and uncertainty, two of the most colourful episodes involve the acquisition of unconventional gifts (one of the heads of the symbolic eagle on the clock tower, and a stolen taxidermied platypus) with which underlings hoped to curry favour with the art-sensitive and debauchery-loving tyrant. D’Annunzio renamed his favourite tavern The Platypus, which is now a nail bar that we see being transformed by a crew back to its original state for one night.
Bezinovic delights in sharing the serious game of Fiume o morte! with us, taking us inside the film’s construction as he plays with levels of reality and cinematic artifice. The 1919 plebiscite, which was annulled once it became clear citizens wanted the occupation to end, and erupting street violence, are also recreated, in a cannily stripped-back manner and clever sound design, that does not rely on a huge effects budget but brings a great sense of immediacy and participatory inclusivity to the ongoing history and identity of this city, with its countless changes of hand and larger-than-life ghosts.
Director, Screenwriter: Igor Bezinovic
Editing: Hrvoslava Brkusic
Producers: Vanja Jambrovic, Tibor Keser, Erica Barbiani, Lucia Candelpergher, Marina Gumzi
Cinematographer: Gregor Bozic
Sound design: Eric G. Nardin
Music: Hrvoje Niksic, Giovanni Maier
Production companies: Restart (Croatia), Videomante (Italy), Nosorogi (Slovenia)
Sales: Lightdox
Venue: Rotterdam (Tiger Competition)
In Croatian, Italian
112 minutes