Fascisti su Marte

There's only so many "blackshirt in space" based gags you can do before the whole things gets boring.

This movie is just too long: starts funny but kind of dies with a whimper.

Making people laugh has become an ardous task these days.

But some things (like Trump) are risible and scary at the same time. And doing a film about Mussolini and his era is a joke which becomes particularily relevant nowadays...not only because Mussolini and Trump share facial expressions and body attitudes (as does the entertaining protagonist of our film) but...in this case...the USA comes in late on the triunfal race to 'dominate' Mars! Mussolini's boys got there first, and in the 1930ies!!!

So WHAT IS 'Facists on Mars' ?!?

It's one looong 1930ies pseudo-Newsreel, complete with typical fascist-era speaker and rhetoric.

The jokes are smart, ironic, and mostly wrily funny for an Italian audience. Pity that after almost 25 years of Berlusconi, most Italians have been near zombified, making such satire almost useless.

Corrado Guzzanti and his sister Sabina, have been poking fun with skill and intellect at the Right Wing for a long time. Here, despite the low-fi SFX, FANDANGO FILMS put in quite an effort as one can see. And the film is charming in it's apparent 'vintage' naivité. But more is working behind the façade...and that's what is most appealing. I suspect we are being reminded that the whole US Govt / NASA hoo-ha about the Mars Space Programme is...in fact...hollow and ridiculous Propaganda, for OUR era! This harmless 'mockumentary' may go on a bit too long but, hey!, we may just re-discover it in a couple of decades and...see how HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

Or maybe not.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed a few good, spontaneous, laughs!

"Fascisti su Marte" is a feature film based on the TV series "Fascisti su Marte", included in the show "Il caso Scafroglia" by Corrado Guzzanti, who's the co-director, the co-writer, the narrator and the leading male in this likable film.

The TV series, composed by brief sketches, was smashing: funny, witty and irresistible. But it's impossible to bring to the silver screen (in a film of about 90 minutes) a story who in five minutes has told everything.

The plot stretches itself until the end, and, if at the beginning you laugh heartily, then you start yawning with boredom because ideas are scarce.

But this film has two credits: the inventiveness of cinematographer, costume designer and production designer, who created the planet Mars from a Magliana's quarry (in Rome) and with a small budget, and maybe it's the first film who speaks ironically about the Fascism in Italy.

The signature tune at the beginning is mythical! "Faascisti su Maarte, rosso pianeta bolscevico e traditor…" (fascists on Mars, red Bolshevik traitor planet).

It's probably because I wasn't born in Italy that I'm not a huge fan of Italian comedy - in fact, apart from a few classics like Fantozzi (who got old as well) I hardly can stand today's so called "comedians" like De Sica or Boldi. Then what was I expecting from "Fascisti su Marte" (Fascists on Mars)? I liked the concept, and despite the fact that I've never seen the source material TV-show, I thought this could be entertaining. I couldn't be more right.

The concept is as simple as it gets - Fascists are sent to conquer Mars, but as always, only a bunch of people with little to no food or any resource are sent. The problems are many, caused not only by the lack of resources, but also because Mars has no air, no water, or no life whatsoever. Or does it? When the strange rock-resembling creatures that apparently say "mimimmi" appear, things turn out very differently, and what seemed to be an easy task in a place full of nothing but sand (a clear satire of the attack on Libia), turns out to be a matter of interests, whereas the "Duce" sure wouldn't let our heroes lose (also to mention that the 5 men are bringing around a bust of Mussolini himself).

When the war against inanimate objects isn't going on, the soldiers act as typical Italians - they laugh for bad jokes, they play soccer, they quarrel. But all this mindlessness causes trouble, which makes it necessary for the soldiers to create commissions, real politics in an otherwise anarchic situation - institutions as the MIN.CHI (which is a vulgar Italian pun), which in theory should make all easier, but in reality do not work at all (any resemblance with real history is unintended of course). Constant adoring of the Dux and typical Fascist behaviors of the protagonists force the viewer to know how Italian history went, because while the movie is fun for the situations itself, the funniest thing is the political and historical satire it makes - it even jokes on the war on terror in Iraq for example. But it also makes fun of movies like Schindler's List and 2001: A Space Odissey, so you'd better have a good general knowledge too.

We could say that an Italian film that ridiculizes the Italian (and not just that) history is very daring, especially when one-sided jokes clearly insult other countries (like England who were "still hunting beavers while we were already conquering"), and indeed Corrado Guzzanti (the director) made a great job, without caring of possible controversy (but then the source material is already around from a long time, so no trouble).

The actors, all knowable but none are very famous, are doing a great job, even the less important ones. In the last part of the movie many new actors appear as the story continues, but the level remains high. Also, congratulations for making a believable Mars scenario with such limited budget. I'd also mention that there's a small cartoon sketch on the "mimimmi", I don't know who drew that one, but it's pretty funny and well made. But then you shouldn't expect A pretty lenghty review with no bad sides? Not really. As I said, you need to know a lot about Italian history, and even better, you'd better be Italian to get this movie fully. There's just no way ANY translation could give this movie any justice, because you just can't "translate" the typical Italian behaviors. Also, if you could get offended by one-sided political and religion points of view, you'd better not watch this movie, because they're even making a hypothetical Fascists Madonna (extremely funny if offensive). In the end, this movie is extremely funny if you know what's so funny about it - but this is not your typical USA comedy with random jokes, so only watch this if you know a lot on Italian history and Italian culture. In that case you won't be disappointed.

After 15 minutes, i sleep, not funny and the story its nonsense, similar of many of the first actor.

The impression is politic affiliation of the author, and the result is a flop over the world, because the structure dont exist.

All the scene is very low quality, like a homemade movie, 1 million euro for recording a movie in a cheap location and probably better with camera for home recording, too bad, and waste of money for the result.

This its not a real movie actor, its a little comedian for sketch series, and dont like his style with a pletora of politician people fans, its overrated and serious, no funny.

Post edit of the movie, its very cheap like a plug in in a shareware software, colorization was orribile.

Tipical scene in italy, many people without professional structure write books, movie, but the result its a flop.