An hilarious spoof of the "Istituto Luce" propaganda news report that the fascist regime used to project in the theaters before the feature film. Instead of the Libia's conquest, this is about the forgotten mission on Mars by which, May 10th, 1939, "Mars is fascist!".
A platoon of fascist soldiers, Pini, Freghieri, Fecchia, Santodio, commanded by the bold "gerarca Ba-R-R-R-bagli" (Corrado Guzzanti, also writer and co-director of this film), lands on Mars' unfriendly soil.
The first issue is the oxygen: there's no air on Mars. But our heroes, though badly equipped with no respirators (a bash of the fascist regime, which was often criticized for sending its soldiers low on budget on almost suicidal missions), don't waiver and, with a simple "Me ne frego!" ("I don't give a damn!") the commander Barbagli starts to breathe and order his men to do so, demonstrating the propaganda credo that a strong will is more than enough to win every material adversity.
From then on, our heroes are set to begin the journey on the red ("bolshevik and traitor") planet, soon discovering that it's nothing more than a huge desert (a "box full of sand", how the historians called the Libia's conquest before the oil was discovered). The only comfort to the soldiers' morale is the company of a Mussolini's statue in form of a bust which Barbagli pretends to communicate telepathically with and sometimes "romanly" kisses.
The lack of any life form to subjugate, though a problem at first, is solved when a clandestine "balilla" child (actually a 36-years-old adult dressed in the uniform of a fascist school boy), while running away from its punishment bumps into an inanimate egg-shaped rock with two antennas sticking out its head, swearing he heard it say the word "Mimimmi".
The rest of the movie unfolds as a quest for the water, and the history of the "battle" against the Mimimmi's people of rock, that like any good colonialist the fascists try at first to enroll in their army then, frustrated by their "lack of cooperation", begin to persecute when suspected of engaging in guerrilla against the conqueror. There is also a bash of the Iraqi war, when the narrator claims that "weapons of mass destruction are searched for inch by inch, (often the same inch), but what is found is the VOID: and the VOID is the most lethal of all the WMAs. So we are pulled into this conflict by the hair".
Maybe the most irresistible feature of this movie is the narrating voice, that mimics the solemn and bombastic timbre of the 1930's imperialist propaganda, using obsolete terms and bizarre pronounce of common words. There is also a mini "regime cartoon" that depicts the Mimimmi's as evil newborn-eaters that are at last defeated by a heroic Barbagli with the help of the infamous fascist's trademark tools of the billy club and castor oil.
Another hilarious moment is when, during a recreative Bingo night session when all the dates fatal to the fascist regime (8-9-43, 25-4-45, etc.) are drawn in sequence, Barbagli has delusions of seeing the martians in the shape of Teletubbies greeting him from the dark desert and starts to shoot at them laughing like a madman.
The story ends with some twists, a deus-ex-machina plot and an epilogue set in modern days.
An intelligent satire against the fascist (and the imperialist/colonialist at large) regime and mentality, packed with fun at a frantic pace. A must-see.
A platoon of fascist soldiers, Pini, Freghieri, Fecchia, Santodio, commanded by the bold "gerarca Ba-R-R-R-bagli" (Corrado Guzzanti, also writer and co-director of this film), lands on Mars' unfriendly soil.
The first issue is the oxygen: there's no air on Mars. But our heroes, though badly equipped with no respirators (a bash of the fascist regime, which was often criticized for sending its soldiers low on budget on almost suicidal missions), don't waiver and, with a simple "Me ne frego!" ("I don't give a damn!") the commander Barbagli starts to breathe and order his men to do so, demonstrating the propaganda credo that a strong will is more than enough to win every material adversity.
From then on, our heroes are set to begin the journey on the red ("bolshevik and traitor") planet, soon discovering that it's nothing more than a huge desert (a "box full of sand", how the historians called the Libia's conquest before the oil was discovered). The only comfort to the soldiers' morale is the company of a Mussolini's statue in form of a bust which Barbagli pretends to communicate telepathically with and sometimes "romanly" kisses.
The lack of any life form to subjugate, though a problem at first, is solved when a clandestine "balilla" child (actually a 36-years-old adult dressed in the uniform of a fascist school boy), while running away from its punishment bumps into an inanimate egg-shaped rock with two antennas sticking out its head, swearing he heard it say the word "Mimimmi".
The rest of the movie unfolds as a quest for the water, and the history of the "battle" against the Mimimmi's people of rock, that like any good colonialist the fascists try at first to enroll in their army then, frustrated by their "lack of cooperation", begin to persecute when suspected of engaging in guerrilla against the conqueror. There is also a bash of the Iraqi war, when the narrator claims that "weapons of mass destruction are searched for inch by inch, (often the same inch), but what is found is the VOID: and the VOID is the most lethal of all the WMAs. So we are pulled into this conflict by the hair".
Maybe the most irresistible feature of this movie is the narrating voice, that mimics the solemn and bombastic timbre of the 1930's imperialist propaganda, using obsolete terms and bizarre pronounce of common words. There is also a mini "regime cartoon" that depicts the Mimimmi's as evil newborn-eaters that are at last defeated by a heroic Barbagli with the help of the infamous fascist's trademark tools of the billy club and castor oil.
Another hilarious moment is when, during a recreative Bingo night session when all the dates fatal to the fascist regime (8-9-43, 25-4-45, etc.) are drawn in sequence, Barbagli has delusions of seeing the martians in the shape of Teletubbies greeting him from the dark desert and starts to shoot at them laughing like a madman.
The story ends with some twists, a deus-ex-machina plot and an epilogue set in modern days.
An intelligent satire against the fascist (and the imperialist/colonialist at large) regime and mentality, packed with fun at a frantic pace. A must-see.