Original subtitles

BARBARIC LAND

APRIL 29, 1945 - MILAN PIAZZALE LORETO

THE CORPSE OF IL DUCE

"After initiating so many massacres without images,

the final images of him are those of his massacre."

Italo Calvino

LIBYA, 1926 DUCE'S "NAPOLEONIC" YEAR

From the dream of the Empire's conquest

to the practical transposition of the African undertaking

ON THE WAY TO TRIPOLI, APRIL 1926

We play and dance on the Mediterranean

On the fringes of a Europe that today

Rejects those who flee war and hunger

And accept the risk of drowning at sea

Bottomless grave

We play and dance on the Mediterranean

On the fringes of a Europe that today

Rejects those who flee war and hunger

And accept the risk of drowning at sea

Bottomless grave

African adventure

for entrepreneurs, financiers,

administrators, explorers,

doctors,

priests, nuns and missionaries,

all eager

to tear Africans away

from superstition and slavery.

1922-1932...

The occupation of Libya.

No mercy for the "rebels"

whose property is seized,

be it goods or real estate.

100,000 Libyans are deported

between July and December 1930.

No prisoners were taken:

they shot everyone...

men, women and children.

A HOLIDAY, ITALY 1926

We celebrate the "new spirit" of collaboration

between industrialists and the working class.

A textile firm working for the Lybian war effort.

We have found

several letters

from a young worker to her gunner fiancé

stationed in Tobruk

during the Libyan war.

Benvenuta, February 28,

1925.

"My dear Riccardo,

Where has our love gone?

It isn't a passing fancy for me, you know.

Do you find me ugly, don't you?

Or have you found a woman there?

Unless your parents have written to you

to say they weren't pleased with me,

that they would prefer a country girl.

Send me back my photo

and I'll send you yours.

If you're still my Riccardo,

I send you a kiss.

Your Benvenuta.

Farewell.

Farewell."

Benvenuta comments on a postcard from Libya:

"You say you laugh when you see how these people

are dressed.

What look like rags to us

are in fact their traditional costumes."

CARNIVAL

Carnival. Carnival-time contestation

was one of the tactics

used by the superior "caste"

to establish its power.

Arabs, Black Africans...

A reference to those called "discoveries",

an euphemism that designated brutal conquests.

Carnival is a corrosive acid...

in actual fact, those in power rule as absolute masters.

Harsh.

Merciless.

Carnival.

Carnival-time contestation

was one of the tactics used by the superior "caste"

to establish its power. Arabs, Black Africans...

A reference to those called "discoveries",

an euphemism

that designated brutal conquests.

Carnival is a corrosive acid...

In actual fact, those in power

rule as absolute masters.

Harsh.

Merciless.

THE 1930s IN ITALY

The regime's military and civilian parades

They obeyed

and collaborated

in a policy

that pursued a blood and cruel conquest.

They need uniforms...

costumes...

in short, it's all a matter of appearance.

Individuals,

neither perverse,

nor sadistic,

but normal.

Horrifyingly normal.

Fascism

is a form of government

through which

a whole people

can be dominated

to the extent

that it's possible to abuse them

in order to dominate other peoples.

ORIGINAL TITLE-CARD 1935-1936

"Ethiopia, for this primitive and barbaric land,

the age of civilization has now arrived."

We recently went back

to search film archives

to look for photograms

of Ethiopia-Abyssinia

from the Italian colonial period.

The bare bodies of the women and the "body" of the film,

this stock damaged

and torn even

from countless viewings.

Certain words appear in one card after another:

"type", "barbaric",

"marauder",

"primitive",

"devious",

"proverbial wariness",

"bigamy".

Zoological vocabulary is applied.

Today,

here, in Europe,

racism is spreading.

People arm themselves

to drive out the poor

and disturbing foreigners

to send them back to their original hell.

I remember a letter from Abyssinia by Arthur Rimbaud:

"The people of the Harar are neither more stupid,

nor more dishonest

than the white negroes of so-called "civilized" countries."

EASTERN AFRICA, 1935-1937

There was no conflict, no tension,

no butchery, no bloodshed...

and so no consequences:

The massacres went undocumented.

A telegram from Mussolini:

"Approval of the use of gas

"for superior reasons of national defence.

To finish with the rebels,

use gas."

"I again authorize

a policy of terror

and extermination of rebels and collusive populations."

Emperor Haile Selassie, June 30, 1936.

"The country seemed to be crumbling.

The silence became more oppressive by the day

over the magnificent high plateaus

where the horizons are so vast

and so pure.

Neither men nor animals could breathe.

All living beings

who had been touched

by the light rain that fell from the planes,

who had drunk the poisoned water

or eaten contaminated food,

fled screaming and sought refuge

in the huts

or deep in the forest to die there.

There were corpses everywhere,

in every bush,

in every tree,

wherever refuge seemed possible.

But there were even more spread out there

in broad daylight, in full sight,

for death arrived at top speed

and many did not have time

to seek a refuge to die in peace.

Very quickly,

an unbearable stench spread

over the whole region."

For the Italian airmen, it was no longer a war but a game.

What risk was there in shooting the dead and the dying

whose eyes had been burned by the gas?

What risk was there in shooting

the dead and the dying whose eyes

had been burned by the gas?

Telegram from Il Duce:

"No agreement.

I want everything.

Including the emperor's head.

No one is more in favour than I am of a harsh war.

In other words, war."

No one is more in favour than I am

of a harsh war.

In other words, war.

1936...

Extract from a balcony speech by Mussolini:

"...an empire of peace

because Italy wants peace,

for herself and all peoples."

But, at the time, Mussolini was already preparing

the military intervention in Spain.

AN EASTERN AFRICAN WAR ALBUM 1935-1937

An army of specialized workers,

the dictatorship's labourers,

apply their efforts

to the apparatus of destruction.

Do these men care

about the consequences of their work?

Capable of not seeing

the madness

and the horrors of war.

The armies

of specialized workers,

the dictatorship's labourers,

apply their efforts

to the apparatus of destruction.

Do these men care

about the consequences

of their work?

Capable of not seeing

the madness and the horrors of the war.

Capable of not seeing

the madness and the horrors of war.

Weapons of mass extermination

and mustard gas bombs are loaded onto planes.

These weapons of extermination

are still used today

even though, as in the past,

those responsible deny their use.

"Do you love me, Maria?"

is written on the back of a photo.

The words date from May, 1936,

the month of the empire's conquest.

The wife and mother.

Photos of families in Italy

during the war in Eastern Africa.

The measures taken by the Fascist government

to protect the race

and to avoid interbreeding that was deemed unacceptable

are well known.

The "Disperatata" squadron,

commanded by Ciano, flies Caproni planes.

They descend to a low altitude

and open fire on peasants

with rifles and pistols.

The Fascist man has been perfectly educated.

He exalts drinking and eating, love,

work and absence of thought.

The Ascari,

the Eritrean soldiers serving in

the Italian colonial army.

Ethnical hatred and religion are used

as mortal weapons.

The bullet holes are painted

to highlight them.

They are emblems.

The pleasure

of war.

The feeling of being sheltered

from need.

Physical activity.

Contact with the machines of war.

Colonial eroticism.

Could all that explain the success of Fascism?

So that's it?

Each period has its fascism.

Insolent and hideously farcical,

Fascism returns again.

We sense a feeling of concern.

We are plunged into a dark night,

we don't know where we are going.

And you?

Subtitles : Mos3n