Directed by Marco Bellocchio. Starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi. In Italian with English subtitles. Unrated. Playing Friday to Thursday, August 26 to September 1, at the Vancity Theatre

Who knew the hottest screen sex seen this year would involve Benito Mussolini with a full head of hair? Well, this is the young, dark Mussolini played by Filippo Timmi, whose virility stood up to George Clooney’s in The American. And Benny’s love interest is played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who likewise swooned languidly in The Last Kiss and Love in the Time of Cholera.

Most importantly, Vincere was directed and cowritten by Italian master Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket), using recently uncovered material to fashion a gorgeously shot epic combining erotic nightmare, psychological study, and grand, tragic opera, with a spectacular modernist score to move it forward.

Ghosts of the silent era hover nearby (Charlie Chaplin and Sergei Eisenstein have bravura cameos), perfectly animating Mezzogiorno’s divalike turn as Ida Dalser, who first fixates on the future fascist around 1910, when he’s still a God-snubbing Socialist. They go at it like smooth-skinned wolves of Rome; she bears him a son and then helps him build his own newspaper. After he switches sides during the First World War, though, Catholic family values prove crucial to his career (the film’s title means “to win”).

As with the heroine of The Story of Adele H., Ida’s obsession is only comprehensible to herself. As a married head of state sucking up to the Vatican and the monarchy, the aging imperialist finds her presence slightly inconvenient, and she’s sent to an asylum, where she keeps insisting that Mussolini is her husband. Afterwards, the now-bald and jaw-jutting leader is only glimpsed through newsreel clips that, intriguingly, reveal more insecurities than those displayed by Timmi, who makes a last-act appearance as the doomed fascist’s young son. Even if you don’t care that the Dalsers, like the rest of their country, were seduced and abandoned, you’ll find yourself saluting the magnificent cinema of Vincere.

Watch the trailer for Vincere.