Venice Review: Pietro Marcello's Duse Offers a Simple Homage to a Legendary Prima Donna

      In 1921, three years after World War I concluded, a train left the small town of Aquileia in northeastern Italy. Adorned with flags and wreaths, it transported the coffin of an unknown soldier to his final resting place in Rome. The ride was slow and somber. Throughout the journey, crowds formed to honor the soldier—ordinary citizens, widows, and orphans stood silently as the carriages passed by. This journey was captured in the 1921 documentary *Gloria: Apotheosis of the Unknown Soldier*, and snippets of this footage appear throughout Pietro Marcello’s film *Duse*, which explores both the last years of the iconic Italian actress and the tumultuous world she navigated. This micro-macro perspective has consistently been Marcello’s approach, as seen in *Martin Eden*, which intertwined its protagonist’s personal and artistic struggles with broader societal changes. While *Duse* may not reach the heights of *Martin Eden*, it continues Marcello’s endeavor to connect the past with the present, and reality with myth.

      Marcello is a distinctive filmmaker whose work does not view "now" and "then" as separate entities but as existing within the same continuum of time and space. This perspective helped *Martin Eden* avoid the stifling characteristics that afflict many period dramas. In adapting Jack London’s 1909 novel, he and co-writer Maurizio Braucci moved the setting from early 1900s Oakland to Naples. This bold choice led to a rich portrayal unbound by time; anachronisms were plentiful, with costumes suggesting the 1930s while television sets hinted at later decades, and other decor and Italian pop songs further complicated the temporal context. A key element in this disorientation was Marcello’s use of archival footage; like his previous works, *Martin Eden* didn’t merely include snippets from early-20th-century Italy but integrated them with Alessandro Abate and Francesco Di Giacomo’s 16mm cinematography, blending existing clips with Marcello’s own content to blur temporal clues. His films, particularly at their most captivating, create a unique sense of dislocation, which is why *Duse* feels like an exception.

      Co-written by Marcello, Letizia Russo, and Guido Silei, the film follows Eleonora Duse (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) as she makes her return to the stage after a 12-year absence. Labeled as the greatest theater actress of her era and honored with the nickname “La Divina,” her return is a significant event, marked by the premiere of an Ibsen play that draws many aristocrats and politicians, including the then-MP Benito Mussolini. Mussolini’s presence is not the only connection; Marcello links Duse’s comeback to Italy’s resurrection after World War I and its troubling descent into fascism.

      A thematic continuity runs through both films in their depiction of how power impacts the artist: *Martin Eden* detailed its lead’s transformation from an idealistic youth to a wealthy yet spiritually fractured literary figure, while *Duse* hints at a similar trajectory for Eleonora and her creative and romantic partner, Gabriele D’Annunzio (Fausto Russo Alesi). As they fall for Mussolini’s regime, they eventually awaken—too late—to its destructive effects on society and art. Still, Duse's 1921 return presents Marcello with a chance to explore different concerns. While her extraordinary talent is never in question, it raises the issue of why she would choose to perform "the classics" after a monumental event such as WWI, or reject opportunities in the emerging film industry. The world is evolving, a new medium is rising, and the type of theater Duse excelled in is fading.

      Bruni Tedeschi portrays these tensions with powerful conviction, embodying Eleonora as a blend of an innocent child and a caustic diva eager to support younger writers, only to abandon them when they do not measure up to her standards. Her performance heavily relies on her facial expressions to communicate the Divina’s intense charisma. Marco Graziaplena’s close-up handheld camerawork focuses on her face, aligning with Marcello’s choice not to depict her in action—illustrating that *Duse* is not primarily about showcasing tangible evidence of its heroine's genius. She is only briefly seen acting, and sparing Bruni Tedeschi from recreating Duse’s performances helps *Duse* avoid some of the clichéd tropes found in many biopics. However, this does not completely clarify why she is revered by her many admirers—leaving only Bruni Tedeschi’s compelling performance, which alone does not sufficiently justify the hagiography.

      Worryingly, *Duse* lacks the disorienting quality that made Marcello’s previous films so immersive. While the director incorporates archival clips,