Learning about Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 16-month occupation of Fiume, a tale vividly retold in Igor Bezinović’s new, Tiger Award-winning documentary Fiume o Morte!, I spared a thought for Yukio Mishima. D’Annunzio’s life didn’t end so theatrically, but the two men––celebrated writers and hyper-nationalists with hubristic military dreams and similarly contested legacies––certainly shared a taste for the quixotic and chaotic. Was D’Annunzio a fascist colonizer, as those who still remember him in Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) claim, or was he the admirable dreamer as romantic as his poems? A century later, the jury’s still out.
Digging into all those contradictions with the help of 300 locals (a few of whom gamely play the man himself) Bezinović has made a historical film of remarkable wit and energy. Given the participation of so many from the region (not to mention the current climate in Europe), it is also surprisingly coy with its condemnation: Fiume o Morte! remains resolutely curious about the man’s motivations and even a touch enamored by the boldness of his acts. Dazzled and conflicted are some of the best things a documentary like this can be, and that clear passion for the subject, as well as Bezinović’s cinematic flair, makes for infectious, often-hilarious viewing.
Some lives grow far too big for any one film to contain them, but Bezinović gives it his best. D’Annunzio was born in Pescara in 1863, made his name as a prominent poet and playwright at the beginning of the 20th century, and later reinvented himself––consequentially, in the eyes of his countrymen––as a national hero fighting in WWI. While politically left-leaning, the war years calcified the writer’s nationalist tendencies to the point that when Fiume was named a part of Yugoslavia in the Paris Peace Conference, D’Annunzio was so enraged that he rounded up 186 Italian grenadiers to take it back. It’s a story so good, so full of folly and hubris, it’s hard to believe there hasn’t been a major film made about it before.
This is of course great news for Bezinović, as it is for any viewer unaware of D’Annunzio’s deeds and misdeeds, especially given how well the filmmaker spins the yarn: Fiume is constructed as a mixture of absurdist reenactments (conducted in counterpoint amidst normal, bustling streets) and somewhat more sobering archival material in the second act (where the film takes an understandable dip into something more conventional). Not a great deal of film exists from the time; Bezinović instead uses D’Annunzio’s writing and the vast archive of images taken by his photography team. He either visits the sites as they are today (the film opens with images of the bridges D’Annunzio’s men destroyed) or has locals reenact the soldier’s poses. The film finds much of its resonance from the reactions of people passing by.
Most of the fun and satire plays out in the opening half, buoyed by the liveliness of Bezinović’s storytelling and personalities of the people he meets and enlists along the way. (The casting takes place like a vox-pop, on a gorgeous day in a village market where the director’s evident charm sets the tone for the film.) Bezinović then follows D’Annunzio’s footsteps from Venice to Fiume, with a convoy of lorries standing in for his army and a sports car standing in for his old-timer Fiat. The film’s aesthetic manifesto can be summed up in the shot of a band of uniformed D’Annunzios rocking out on an elevated patch of land as his motorcade rides by. It’s a tremendous image, one that any film would struggle to live up to. Credit to Bezinović and his team for largely pulling it off.
Fiume o Morte! premiered at the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam.