The Illusion

1860. Garibaldi sets out from Quarto and heads for Sicily. When the volunteer army called the Thousand lands, the numbers are not enough and the enemy is large. Garibaldi tries a ruse: part of the force will split off and march in an entirely different direction, so the Bourbon army will leave the main column alone. Colonel Orsini is to carry out the deception. He has two Sicilians with him; one a conjuror, the other a fugitive, and both joined for reasons of their own. The march is thin and dangerous. If the deception works nobody will hear of it. Roberto Andò directs. Toni Servillo plays Colonel Orsini, Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone the two Sicilians, and Tommaso Ragno plays Garibaldi. It is an Italian production. The film opened in Italy on 16 January 2025 and took around three and a half million euros at the box office. Ficarra and Picone are known in Italy as a comic pair; the film places them inside a historical narrative. The matter it treats is those whose names are not in the official history; the story of the Thousand is known but this column stayed at the edge of it. The narrative does not build Garibaldi as a hero; other people pay for the decisions. The colonel Servillo plays is the person in it who doubts most. The film holds comedy and history together and moves between the two registers. Its limit is balance; humour and tragedy do not agree in every scene and the narrative scatters in places. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian cinema and historical narrative. Who it is not for: the tone shifts, the references are local, and the ending sad.