Parky At the Pictures (28/11/2025)

(Reviews of Pillion; Game; and Fiume o Morte!)

PILLION.

Adam Mars-Jones's 2020 novel, Box Hill, provides the inspiration for Harry Lighton's Pillion. However, the first-time writer-director has moved the action from the 1970s to the present day and made a few cosmetic tweaks to put an unconventional spin on the romcom.

Colin Smith (Harry Melling) is a gay traffic warden in Bromley. He lives with his parents, Peggy (Lesley Sharp) and Pete (Douglas Hodge), who encourage him to date when he's not singing with Pete's barbershop quartet. Following a pub performance on Christmas Eve, Colin is surprised to attract the attention of an Adonis-like biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who slips him a card inviting him to a hook-up the next evening.

After Christmas dinner, brother Don (Nick Figgis) warns Colin about meeting Ray outside Primark and suggests he takes the family dog for protection. Peggy (who is undergoing treatment for cancer) urges him to wear his dad's old leather jacket and Colin arrives beside the precinct Christmas tree in time to see Ray tying his Rottweiler to the white picket fence. He does so with his own Dachshund and scampers after the taciturn Swede, as he leads him into a dark alley behind the shops. Realising that small talk isn't Ray's thing, Colin allows himself to be lowered on to his knees in order to lick the biker's boots before fellating him. Deflated when Ray turns down his invitation for a pint, Colin heads home with a grateful shrug and an acceptance that he won't see much of Ray as he isn't around a lot.

Months go by before Ray texts suggesting a sleepover. Peggy and Pete try to chat on the doorstep, but Ray is curtly polite before whisking Colin off to Chislehurst, where he is required to cook supper and stand behind Ray, while he eats and watches television, with Rosie the rottweiler occupying the other seat on the sofa. At bedtime, Colin is told to sleep on a rug at the foot of Ray's bed and he wakes to find a list of chores to do while Ray washes his beloved motorbike.

They wrestle, with Colin in an ass-less leotard, and Ray pins him down on the mat for rough sex. Colin apologises for making his discomfort felt and Ray orders him to buy a butt plug. He also measures him up for leathers and a padlock choke chain and orders him to shave off his floppy brown hair. Feeling comfortable with the arrangement and thrilled to show off his new beau to his workmates, Colin settles into a routine of doing what he's told. Moreover, he begins to enjoy the company of Ray's fellow bikers, even though Peggy is uneasy with the level of dominance that Ray exerts, particularly on Colin's birthday, when she thinks he should take him out for dinner.

In fact, the bikers help Colin celebrate with an iced muffin before they ride into the countryside for a camping weekend. Ray is displeased when Colin causes him to lose a water fight and replaces him with Kevin (Jake Shears). Indeed, when the pillions present themselves face down across some picnic tables (complete with plastic tablecloths) beside the campfire, Colin is hurt when Ray chooses Kevin to pleasure him. However, he moves across to let Colin make amends and rewards him with missionary sex and a whispered `happy birthday' that gives Colin an overwhelming thrill.

Despite Ray's initial reluctance, he agrees to have dinner with Peggy and Pete. However, she's not in a welcoming mood and demands to know what secrets Ray is keeping from her son. She baldly states that she doesn't like the way Ray speaks to Colin and accuses him of being a creepy nut job before Ray calmly avers that her outlook on the nature of their relationship is backward. With Pete trying to keep the peace and Colin terrified that his mother's forthrightness will drive Ray away, the meal comes to an abrupt end.

Following a montage of biker outings accompanied by Colin's love poetry to Ray, we cut to Peggy's funeral. Pete gives the eulogy and asks people to celebrate rather than mourn. Ray asks how it went when Colin comes round, but he is feeling fragile and deliberately burns his hand on a saucepan. Ray is solicitous and even offers a joke when they order in pizza. Moreover, he allows Colin to sleep in his bed and, having been told that love has no part in their arrangement, he can't resist a smile of satisfaction when Ray rolls over and cuddles him in the night. When Colin asks if they can have a day off each week to be a normal couple, however, Ray turns him down flat and is less than amused when Colin tries to sneak under the covers and then hammers on the keys of his electric piano in protest. Intent on making the point that he is more than just a fawning submissive, Colin steals Ray's bike and rides through the night without a helmet with a reckless sense of rebellion.

Waking on the steps up to Ray's flat, Colin is surprised to find a cooked breakfast waiting for him. Ray asks what he wants to do with his day off and they go into town for food. As they sit in the precinct, Ray tells Colin to teach him to sing and they ask a couple of women on the next bench to judge who has the best voice. They go to the pictures and Ray is amused when Colin helps himself from the carton of popcorn on his lap. As the lights dim, he slides his hand between his thighs and we cut to the pair rushing out of the foyer after having been caught in flagrante. Haring through the shops into a nearby park, they collapse on the grass and Colin feels exhilarated as he rolls Ray over and sits on him. Suddenly, as they gaze at each other, Ray kisses Colin passionately and he can barely suppress a smile of happiness as they linger in the moment. However, he fails to notice the wrinkle of alarm around Ray's eyes.

Unable to raise Ray on the phone, Colin calls at the flat, but can't see that it's empty. Pete ferries him round when he seeks out the other bikers to ask if they know Ray's whereabouts. But he has simply vanished and, as Christmas comes round again, Colin sits in the pub after singing `Smile' with the quartet and fills in his profile on a dating app. He explains that he has an aptitude for devotion, but will insist on having a day off each week. As the film ends, he meets up with Darren (Anthony Welsh), a park footballer who decides to give him a try after Colin bobs down to tie his shoelace.

Despite ending on a note of optimism, this is one of the saddest feel-good films of recent times. Colin gets to discover his true self and has high hopes of a mutually beneficial relationship. But he knows that Ray hasn't developed emotionally and one is left to sift through the many imponderables looking for clues about the Swedish stranger and why he feels so unable to trust. Did he perhaps become a dom in order to protect himself after having his heart broken? The answer may lie in the three names that Ray has tattooed on his chest, Wendy, Ellen, Rosie (although they are more likely to refer to past and present dogs than any lost loves). But he does such a good job of withholding information about himself that Colin never even learns what he does for a living, let alone anything about his family background or his emotional history.

Ray's detachment contrasts with the cosy relationship that Colin has with his parents, although Peggy is slyly manipulative in her own way, as she had arranged the blind date that her son was on when he first ran into Ray in the pub. Indeed, Ray is right to accuse Peggy of judging their relationship by her own heteronormative standards in seeking to impose her own brand of happiness on Colin. But she is dying and simply wants to see him settled before she leaves him, which is wholly understandable and it's touching to see the way that Pete strives to support his son in whatever he wants to do.

Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp are excellent in what are essentially Mike Leigh-like roles. Alexander Skarsgård also impresses, as he allows little hints of self-aware amusement to play on his face while Ray watches Colin try to live up to his exacting standards. He may be the master, but he's anything but a monster. Likewise, Colin might be a sub, but he isn't a sex slave and Harry Melling (in a performance that will leave some Dudley Dursley fans askance) deftly conveys the sense of security that Colin feels as he becomes accustomed to his new regime.

As one might expect of a director who earned a BAFTA nomination with the 2017 short, Wren Boys, Harry Lighton makes assured use of Nick Morris's close-ups to contrast Colin and Ray's perspectives, while he also demonstrates a sly sense of humour in letting actions speak louder than words, even during the tensest scenes. Indeed, the only sequence that doesn't quite ring true is the lunch at which Peggy insists on saying her piece. Compare this to the restricted use of dialogue during the key scenes in Colin and Ray's courtship, which clearly persuaded the Un Certain Regard jury at Cannes to present Lighton with the Best Screenplay Award. And kudos, too, for Maggie the Rottweiler, who was gifted a special Mutt Moment Award by the bestowers of the Palm Dog.

GAME.

Two unlikely bands come together in Game, the debut feature of Bristol-based director John Minton. With Portishead co-founder Geoff Barrow acting as producer and Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson playing the antagonist, this is an intriguing, if ultimately one-note indie that simultaneously celebrates and satirises 1990s rave culture.

Having stolen some drugs from a comatose man at a rave, David (Marc Bessant) flips his car in woodland and struggles to free himself from his seatbelt. Pain shoots through his arm each time he tries to move, but he remains trapped and resorts to calling for help in the hope that someone can hear him.

A flashback shows him being disturbed by a passing neighbour in an attempt to burgle the home of his holidaying parents. As morning comes, David manages to find a wrap of cocaine and rubs it into his gums. He also winds down the window and makes contact with an Alsatian dog. Trying to tempt it with some food, he urges the animal to fetch its owner. But no one has come by the time night falls and he begins to wonder if he will ever be found.

Cracking a glow stick, David consumes some ecstasy from the stolen stash and is drifting off when the dog returns and starts biting him through the open window. Unable to reach the broken bottle he had used in a bid to cut the seatbelt, he manages to wind up the window and throttles the creature, which whines pitifully before falling silent.

When David comes round, he sees a ski-masked figure sitting nearby. Poacher (Jason Williamson) dislikes the interlopers who disturb the woodland animals with their loud music and he is in no mood to forgive David for killing his dog in self-defence. Knotting two sticks into a crude crucifix, Poacher informs David that he has decided against freeing him because he dislikes him and ignores his pleas, as well as an offer of £10,000 to let him go free. Poacher is only interested in watching David die, because he's an entitled daddy's boy who thinks a price can be put on everything, and he leaves a plastic bottle of scrumpy just out of his reach, as he carries his dog away for burial.

While he's gone, David finds a piece of pink plastic and uses it to hook the handle of the cider bottle. Pulling it towards him, he takes to gulps before stuffing it with pills and powders from the bum bag. Carefully, he replaces the container out of reach and pretends to be asleep as Poacher returns and drinks deeply after his exertions.

Much to David's surprise, there's no sign of Poacher in the morning and he manages to cut through the seatbelt with the broken bottle and a knife he conveniently finds. Dropping to the ceiling of the car with a gentle bump, he hauls himself through the window and is crawling away from the car when Poacher returns (under the impression he is in a fan-vaulted, stained-glass church whosex organ is playing Ravel's `Bolero'). Too jazzed to stop David from escaping, he tells him to listen to the sounds that the woods are making, as he hallucinates foliage on the bare branches.

Making the most of Poacher's incapacity, David hauls himself through the undergrowth until he reaches the car park of the adjoining garden centre. Even though he is prone on the tarmac and covered in dried blood, no one seems to notice him, as they are too preoccupied with their own business. He drags himself into the canteen and greedily sucks liquid through a straw before gorging on leftovers. His nightmare may be over, but life remains an ordeal.

Ending strongly, despite never quite generating sufficient suspense or sense of menace to get viewers on the edge of their seats, this is an audacious debut that is prepared to take risks to achieve its ends. Opening with a near wordless passage of entombed futility, Minton deftly uses flashbacks to prevent the audience from feeling sorry for David. He's shown to be a feckless rogue, who is prepared to steal from his parents and nick drugs from a wasted dealer. We don't get to see the crash that leaves him in the ridiculous position of hanging like a puppet from his seatbelt, but few will expend any pity on him. Not that Poacher is a paragon, as he's also prepared to take his chances to make a quick buck, although Minton (who has shot videos for Peter Gabriel, Portishead, and Noel Gallagher) offers no insights into his lifestyle beyond an affection for his dog.

This lack of backstory makes it difficult for viewers to invest in the characters, as their detachment from each other diminishes the intensity of their conflict. David is enclosed in a space into which Poacher shows no sign of encroaching. Consequently, there is no palpable threat, as all Poacher is prepared to do is let nature take its course. He doesn't even raise his voice. Even when David manages to escape (somewhat speciously, as a trusty blade suddenly comes to hand), he is too zonked to pursue him. Indeed, he's made to look ridiculous by being waylaid by the need to take a dump.

Yet, Jason Williamson plays the role well, as does Marc Bessant, who also contributed to Rob Williams's script. Ross James's cinematography adeptly conveys both the cramped discomfort of the upturned car and the shifts between wonder and menace, as the woods become a different place as day turns into night. Martin Pavey's sound design reinforces this sense of strangeness, as the owl hoots ring out loud and clear in the darkness, while the daytime cracks and rustles give David both hope and anxiety. What they don't do, however, is arouse any despair or dread and therein lies the main problem

FIUME O MORTE!

Following on from Mark Cousins's disappointing rumination on Benito Mussolini's accession to power in The March on Rome (2022), Croatian documentarist Igor Bezinović proves markedly more creative and combative with Fiume o Morte!, which enlists over 300 residents of the present-day Adriatic seaport of Rijeka to reflect on the formation in 1919 of the Italian Regency of Carnaro by the poet, soldier, and proto-fascist, Gabriele D'Annunzio.

In the opening montage, Bezinović describes how Rijeka was formed by adding the island of Sušak to the former city of Fiume. This changed hands some nine times during the 20th century and Bezinović highlights the new names of places formerly associated with Comandante Gabriele D'Annunzio, who destroyed all of the city's bridge during the war with Italy that brought about his downfall.

Conducting a vox pop in the farmer's market, Bezinović discovers that only older citizens tend to have heard of D'Annunzio and few of them know much about him other than the fact he was a fascist. He invites some of the speakers - particularly balding types like D'Annunzio and those conversant with the fading Fiumano dialect - to the Governor's Palace to help recreate the 15 months in which the city became a nation state. The various narrators begin by explaining that when this building opened in 1897, Fiume belonged to Hungary, whose governor had welcomed D'Annunzio when he paid his first visit to the city in 1907 to watch a production of his play, The Ship, a history of Venetian nautical power that branded Slavs as `thieves' and Croatians as `wolves'.

When Italy entered the Great War in 1915, the 52 year-old D'Annunzio joined the army. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 left Fiume in flux, however, with citizens being divided over whether to become part of Italy or Yugoslavia or to remain an autonomous free state. During the treaty negotiation at Versailles, Italian troops clashed with Vietnamese members of the French contingent of the Allied Brigade and these Grenadiers of Sardinia were banished forthwith. However, they vowed to return and sought D'Annunzio as their leader, as his fame as a playwright had being bolstered by his wartime exploits and his growing reputation as a firebrand political speaker. Funded by industrialists from Trieste, the Masonic Grand Order, and La Banca Commerciale Italiana, D'Annunzio agreed to lead the Grenadiers of Sardinia back to Fiume on 11 September 1919.

While establishing these facts with accompanying archive footage and photographs, Bezinović gets to know his balding and Fiumano-speaking volunteers, who are keen to emphasise that they have no truck with D'Annunzio's beliefs and behaviour, even though they have Italian roots. But the fellows playing the role, as D'Annunzio embarks from Venice while suffering with a fever, adopt an impessively imperious mien, as we hear on the soundtrack an extract from a letter that he had written in transit to a young journalist named Benito Mussolini.

A woman called Antonia allows Bezinović to film in the room in which an ailing D'Annunzio had stayed after reconnoitering with his 186 followers in Ronchi. We see the plaque commemorating his stay, as stand-in Milovan Večerina Cico leads a convoy of trucks from a latterday version of the red sports car in which D'Annunzio had actually travelled. There's an amusing mock heroic grandiosity about the recreation, which culminates in a restaging of D'Annunzio's showdown with the head of the Allied Brigade, Vittorio Emanuele Pittaluga (Renzo Chiepolo). Izet Medošević takes the part in this sequence and, because he's a musician, he strides to the roadside to strap on a guitar to play the driving riff that accompanies newsreel footage of the so-called `Sacred Entry'.

There is barely anyone on the street as the modern lorries rumble into Rijeka, as we learn that the city's Italian and Croatian newspapers had carried contrasting accounts of D'Annunzio's arrival. He was met by Antonio Grossich (Goran Pavlić), the leader of the Italian National Council, who proclaimed him Governor of Fiume. Despite feeling unwell, D'Annunzio addressed the crowds gathered beneath his balcony - which is amusingly recreated here with an empty street contrasting with the evidence of monochrome archive material. The words are spoken by Ćenan Beljulji, a local dustman who knows no Italian and delivers the lines phonetically. They are applauded by his wife and son, standing in for the 1919 masses, as the new flag is unfurled.

D'Annunzio's chambers at the Governor's Palace are now part of the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Coast and we see a uniformed stand-in milling between the visitors with his dog, Krissa (who is played here by a whippet named Bob). He signs copies of his books for female admirers - one of whom (Silvana Zorich) reads a poem - and extends a welcome to celebrated pianist, Luisa Baccara (Tonka Mršić). But D'Annunzio was unpopular in the Croatian sector and he marched his troops through the streets in a show of strength (recreated here with a handful of uniformed individuals, who mingle with locals in modern dress). Both Mussolini and Futurist leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti came to Fiume, as we see newsreel clips of D'Annunzio speechifying and saluting in a manner that the future Il Duce must surely have noted. Such was the romantic appeal of the cause that 5000 young Italian men came to Fiume to serve in the new armed force and a montage follows showing strapping Rijekans posing in imitation of the pictures taken by D'Annunzio's Photography Section to show the world what effective leadership looked like. The image of three youths stripped to the waist and brandishing rifles with daggers between their teeth particularly chimes into the `Fiume or Death!' motto.

On 4 November, lieutenants Guglielmo Barbieri and Alberto Tappari climbed the cupola of the Torre Civica and decapitated the two-headed Hapsburg eagle that had been Fiume's emblem. They replaced it with a flag and the episode that caused headlines around the world is recreated for Bezinović's camera. There were no protests within the city, as they had become punishable by fines or prison sentences.

We visit the Fun and Nails salon that now stands on the site of D'Annunzio's favourite watering hole, The Golden Stag. Albano Vučetić supervises a makeover to recreate the place where D'Annunzio would listen to Swiss adjutant Guido Keller (Lovro Mirth) sing. He once stole a stuffed platypus from the Natural History Museum and the bar was renamed in its honour. But times were tough, as winter approached, as the port was being blockaded and unemployment and shortages made life difficult for the 50,000 population whose ranks had been swelled by the arrival of 10,000 idealistic Italians.

Despite the slump, D'Annunzio was a popular twice-weekly visitor to the barracks, where the strains of `Giovinezza' (later the hymn of Mussolini's Fascists) greeted him. A school of economics now stands on the site and students recreate the plebiscite of 18 December 1919 that D'Annunzio reluctantly held into whether to accept Italy's offer of protection if Fiume became a satellite city state. When it becomes clear that the citizenry wants him to leave, he sends soldiers to disrupt the ballot and Bezinović notes that he is compelled to create his own stills of the day, as not a single image exists within the Photography Section archive. Having witnessed such dictatorial behaviour, hundreds of Italian officers abandoned D'Annunzio and, in an effort to shore up his control, he invited Syndicalist Alceste de Ambris to Fiume in January 1920 to draw up a constitution. Clamping down on opposition, the demagogue declared `whoever is not with us is against us', as he sought to find allies who could end Fiume's isolation.

As the role of D'Annunzio passes to Tihomir Buterin, a veteran of Croatia's war of independence, we see supporters of HNK Rejika march past in red flare smoke chanting their loathing of neighbours, Hadjuk Split. Recognising the unifying power of sport, D'Annunzio stressed the importance of physical conditioning and the notion of the perfect specimen. He also insisted that his Legionnaires excelled in such pursuits as throwing stones, climbing trees, finding hiding places, dancing, and singing. Regular drills were held in Drenova above Fiume, although clashes between Italians and Slavs using live ammunition led to injuries.

With hundreds of bored young Italians still pouring into Fiume, D'Annunzio sends them to Porto Barros to join the Disparata Legion that had been founded by his right-hand man, Keller. His officers warn that few recruits have any battlefield experience and that this could prove disastrous in any conflict. However, he is proud of his `Black Flames' and his cameras spent hours capturing set-pieces showing off their enthusiasm and Bezinović recreates scenes involving men jumping off bridges and either rushing past the camera or plunging into the water. At the time of filming, plans were afoot to turn Porto Barros into a marina with German investment and Bezinović notes that foreign speculators provided D'Annunzio with invaluable support in return for exploitable opportunities.

Fiumano speaker and local radio reporter Andrea Marsanich plays D'Annunzio, as he conducts a tour of such dockland sites as the defunct oil refinery and the virtually dormant shipbuilding yard. Meanwhile, Keller has formed an elite group known as Yoga, the Union of Free Spirits Striving For Perfection. He also ordered Legionnaires to swim in the sea at least once a week and we see recreations of smiling poses of buff young men (as well as the odd woman). However, we are also taken to the residential block that was once Fiume's biggest prison and we see a photo of the Autonomist Party members who were incarcerated for publishing a leaflet calling for the end of D'Annunzio's rule.

Disorder in the streets followed a clash in Split on 12 July 1920 between locals and the crew of the Italian warship, Puglia. Non-Italian businesses in Fiume were attacked for 48 hours in retaliation, although an apology was required after the Swedish consulate was targeted in error.

On 30 August 1920 at the Teatro Fenice, the new constitution of Fiume is read aloud by D'Annunzio. However, it was never implemented, even though he proclaimed the Italian Regency of Carnaro one week later. Frustrated by this train of events, Italy sends Guglielmo Marconi (Nikola Tutek) to Fiume to implore D'Annunzio to end his occupation. But he wins over the radio pioneer and Rome actively starts seeking ways to overthrow the Comandante, even signing the Treaty of Rapallo with Yugoslavia in November 1920 to recognise Fiume as a Free State.

Enraged by this development, Keller flew to Rome and dropped seven red roses for the queen at the royal palace, a single white rose for the pope, and a chamber pot for the Italian parliament. It misses and hits a nearby hotel. For his response, D'Annunzio (who is now played by ex-carabiniere Massimo Ronzani) occupies the Kvarner islands of Krk and Rab, which have mostly Croatian populations. He underscores his action by inviting Arturo Toscanini to conduct at the Teatro Verdi before inviting him to dine at The Platypus.

However, time is running out for D'Annunzio, as a band of 3000 Italian soldiers under Captain Enrico Caviglia entered Fiume in the early winter. Despite only having 4000 Legionnaires left in uniform, he declares war on Italy on 24 December and brands the incident, `Bloody Christmas'. Having destroyed the bridges to Sušak, D'Annuncio observed a truce on Christmas Day and Bezinović recreates some of the barricade pictures that were taken that day and has the cast interact with by-passers who ask what they are doing. One woman tells a boy that he should be in a disco with a beautiful girl rather than dabbling with D'Annunzio.

The Five-Day War resumes on 26 December, with the Governor's Palace being hit by a shell fired from the Italian warship, Andrea Doria. In all, D'Annunzio lost one more man than Caviglia (26), while seven civilians including Antonia Copetti perished. On 29 December, D'Annunzio announced that he would leave, although he remained in Fiume until 18 January 1925, when he finally withdrew while high on cocaine. He never returned and the city became part of Italy in 1924.

Milovan Večerina Cico returns to play D'Annunzio in the final scenes, as he spends the last 17 years of his life in Gardone Riviera on Lake Garda. Tourists still visit his home, as narrator Sara Marsanich reveals that Mussolini once compared the poet to a rotten tooth: `You either pull it out or cover it in gold.' He offered him a title to soften the blow of his defeat and D'Annunzio suggested either Prince of the Adriatic or Prince of Montenevoso. He received the latter from King Victor Emmanuel III and revelled in his status, surrounding himself with souvenirs of his time in Fiume (which are still on display at Vittoriale degli Italiani. His last companion was Luisa Baccara, who is seen with him in a 1931 newsreel clip aboard the prow of the Puglia (which he had brought to his retreat from Split), which contains the only recording of his voice. He died in 1938 after a stroke, with his last words supposedly being, `I'm bored, I'm bored.'

He passed knowing nothing of the Second World War (although mention might have been made of his attempts to undermine Mussolini's relationship with Adolf Hitler), Rijeka's time in Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, and its rebirth in an independent Croatia. We learn that a statue of D'Annunzio was unveiled in Trieste in 2019, but there are few reminders of his time in Fiume/Rijeka and they are only visible to the trained eye. Even the Via Roma is now known as the Street of Victims of Fascism. Rather than summing up D'Annunzio's legacy, however, Bezinović contents himself with name-checking his actors, as they watch the carnival parade in the city. They have served him well and, hopefully, they have learned enough about a man of whom they knew nothing at the outset of the documentary to avoid falling any time soon for the glib phrases and superficial charisma of a populist autocrat seeking to exploit them for his own contemptuous ends.

Approaching a fascinating topic from a vibrantly fresh and amusingly acute angle, this timely history lesson evokes curious echoes of Peter Greenaway's The Falls (1980), with its detailed descriptions of tthe ninety-two victims of the Violent Unknown Event, and Radu Jude's I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History As Barbarians (2018), in which a Romanian theatre director faces obstacles in trying to mount a play about the 1941 Odessa Massacre. Igor Bezinović uses similarly stealthy satire to chronicle Gabriele D'Annunzio's Fiumian odyssey, which also warning of the dangers that such self-seeking adventurers can pose. Not that viewers could miss the point, with so many of them currently in power around a world that becomes increasingly dangerous as a result of their rampant macho egotism and psychological instability. You know who you are!

Bezinović makes excellent use of his location and a willing cast to stage key events with admirable authenticity, given what one can only imagine was a limited budget. Shifting the aspect ratio to reveal how his tableaux equate to the archival imagery, he succeeds in being both playful and precise, as he meta-reminds us that those who fell under D'Annunzio's spell a century ago were ordinary men and women just like those in the re-enactments.

The contributions in reframing the past through the present of cinematographer Gregor Božič, production designer Anton Spazzapan, costumiers Tajči Čekada and Manuela Paladin Sabanovi, editor Hrvoslava Brkušić, sound designer Eric Guerrino Nardin, and composers Giovanni Maier and Hrvoje Nikšić are all first rate. But special mention should also be made of casting director Sara Jakupec for coming up with so many non-actors who bought so readily into Bezinović's conceit and brought it to witty, worrying life in what one participant calls `a lovely game that has to be approached with a great seriousness'.

with this otherwise admirable Ben Wheatley homage.