New Delhi, Sept. 11 -- It's difficult to play it straight with period dramas these days. Viewers expect to find modern-day references or resonances in them; this in turn becomes a way for studios to sell these to the public. English director Joe Wright's Italian language TV series, Mussolini: Son of the Century (on MUBI), takes a smartly calibrated approach to this problem.

The show, based on the first in a series of historical novels by Antonio Scurati, follows the early political career of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy between 1922-1943. It has a startling, heightened aesthetic unlike that of a standard historical drama. There is jerky handheld camera, Wright's hallmark tracking shots, and an orchestral score punct...