Mussolini: Son of the Century

It's a harrowing series, centered around a strong central performance, that needs to be seen, starkly reminding us that it's never too late to be bold and stamp out fascist tendencies... until one day it is.

This is sensorial bombardment, sights and sounds that shouldn’t work together, let alone in a series meant to connect the failures of our past with the nightmare of our present. But through this elaborate mash-up, Wright creates the off-kilter atmosphere necessary to underscore the danger at hand.

Across the eight episodes, the hectic, rhythmic, incessant tone of the piece becomes tiring. Yet it’s a remarkable drama, immersive and oppressive, and one that shows how a man of fierce charisma and no principles can make fools of absolutely everybody.

The astonishing thing about this series is the way it marshals this weird, strange story into coherence, a big brassy spectacle that — in another unsettling incongruity — this hideous conglomeration of puffed-up vanity might himself, in his twisted way, have been strangely pleased with.

It’s all flashy, and unsubtle, and more than a little labored. But for those looking for a glimpse into the psychic whirlwind that can hurl a people, and a nation, into tyranny, “Mussolini: Son of the Century” is a sobering but exhilarating watch.

He is the star of a darkly comic opera buffa, and “Son of the Century” presents it like a modern, multimedia Broadway production, which can be exhausting and bloodless but is rarely boring. And Wright and McGarvey’s images — their staging of debates in the vertiginous amphitheater of the Italian parliament, or of a Fascist mob storming into a production of “Madama Butterfly” — can be extraordinary.

Marinelli’s performance is well-measured, even when his character is hifalutin and brash. Still, “Mussolini: Son of the Century” comes up short relating anything outside of Mussolini’s point of view.

Cut it in half and Son of the Century would be a potent portrait of a pathetic monster, brilliantly performed and striking to look at. .... If only this series could have stuck to its point.