Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

As so many have found throughout history,

it's easy to fall in love with Rome.

She is seductively beautiful.

She has endured and survived many things.

What's left of her former glories, her days of empire,

are in ruins, but those ruins continue to enchant us.

You fall into a trance here.

You think, "No matter what, this beautiful dream

will last forever."

And then suddenly, shit gets real.

Before World War I, Benito Mussolini was considered

a bully and a crackpot.

A short-tempered, ever-pontificating soap box orator

from the small town of Predappio.

In time though, the country was divided and in crisis.

It saw itself as besieged by enemies within

and without.

It needed someone who said he could make Italy

great again.

He was a man on a horse saying, "Follow me,"

and they did.

When fascists marched on Rome,

the Prime Minister resigned and Benito Mussolini

was appointed leader by the king.

It can happen anywhere.

It happened here.

Nearly a century later, this is what he left behind.

The Rome that many Romans still live in today.

So this is not a show about monuments or statues

or the treasures of antiquity.

This is about people, often extraordinary ones,

living their lives in the Rome you don't see much of

in the travel guides or TV shows.

Ah, nice painting of Anna Magnani on the wall.

I was just watching her in such films as "Mamma Roma."

Ettore.

Don't you have a little kiss for your mother?

Oh, all right.

Grazie.

Mmm, yeah.

I love this place.

I wanna die here already, and I might yet.

Some people asked me at my hotel where they should eat.

Just... wherever the concierge tells you to go,

don't go there.

Goddamn.

That's beautiful.

Oh, man, that's so completely awesome.

Biancofiore, I need your help.

Would you blackmail a guy for me?

Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of Italy's

great film makers.

A revolutionary figure in cinema who celebrated

the working-class suburbs of Rome.

He was a vocal opponent of fascism

and of those he felt allowed it to happen.

His characters were down and out, victims, predators,

broodish, and wounded, often played by real people

rather than actors.

Even stolen goods, I don't care.

I buy them anyway.

But they were always, even at their worst,

depicted as angelic in all their flawed

and damaged glory.

Rome's true heroes.

Ah.

The hard slap of leather against wet skin.

The thud of muscle and bone and collision

with muscle and bone.

There is blood and sweat and bitter tears

as these warriors face each other in brutal combat.

But, hey, there's pasta and a nice glass of wine.

Hey, this is pretty absurd.

These people are fighting their hearts out,

getting brain damaged, and I'm merely

eating spaghetti.

This is violent, too.

It looks like somebody's been opened and I'm looking

at the insides of one of those guys.

Actor, director Asia Argento is a member

of a dynastic film family stretching back generations.

Her father is Dario Argento.

Credited with creating a wildly innovative

and whole new style to the modern horror film

as we know it.

How big is your family?

- Like, if you were to have a, like... - We don't.

You don't.

You don't do, like, a big gathering of the clans?

I love the expression.

You're like Asia has a reputation

for saying what she feels.

Yeah, him up.

Regardless of what people might think.

Papa, is it true that you're leaving Her

semi-autobiographical film "Misunderstood"

played at the Cannes Film Festival.

I'll be back soon.

I have to shoot a movie and...

Yes, your daddy is going.

But he is not brave enough to tell his daughter

he is leaving her.

- She's crazy! - It's all her fault.

It's my fault for having a daughter

with a dickhead like you.

Asia is the single mother of two children,

and lives modestly in a middle-class neighborhood

on the outskirts of Rome.

She was born, raised, and remains a Roman

by blood and attitude.

- How is it? - This is fantastic.

Mm, yeah, it's actually great.

The gladiators, looks like Ancient Rome in a way.

So Romans complain?

The Romans, they complain about everything.

Oh, yeah?

Oh, it's a nightmare.

- Complaining about the Gypsies... - Right.

About the mayor.

The... who will run Rome next.

Who's taking over?

What about fascism?

- Like, Mussolini. - Yeah.

- My daughter, okay? - Uh-huh?

She goes to a private school, but not, like,

you know, expensive.

Like, not... it's a... It's a nun school

- for sakes, okay? - Uh-huh.

A kid would get on the teacher's desk

and they would start chanting, like,

"Hitler, I love you,"

and, uh... - Right. Right.

At the same time, as you see around,

there's an obelisk with "Mussolini"

and it hasn't been torn down.

In Berlin, you wouldn't see something like that

- from Hitler. - Right.

It would be absurd.

Here? No.

The series of high-speed straightaways

interrupted by sharp turns with no shoulders,

the Via del Mare was central to Mussolini's dream

of connecting Rome to the Mediterranean.

It is, today, Italy's most dangerous road.

The Via del Mare makes an abrupt dead-end

in the beach-front suburb of Ostia.

There's a monument here to Pasolini,

on the spot he was brutally beaten to death by a band

of young male hustlers.

Though many attribute the murder to neofascists enraged

by his politics.

Hey, how you doing? Hi, guys.

Grazie.

Eat.

- I meet my good friend, Sara, among Ostia's

post-war housing blocks, just off the beach at a place

that's new to us both.

The people here are originally from Sardinia.

- Many people in Ostia are originally from Sardinia. - Oh, really?

L'angolo Amici, or "The Friends Corner,"

is a bar where everyone knows everybody's name...

if they're sober enough to remember.

He's a professional boxer.

He's a professional boxer?

- He was. - His ears look good.

That's because I would just knock people down.

They used to call me "Little Tyson."

He calls himself "The Little Tyson."

It's true I swear.

Here, everybody has a nickname.

I have done the world amateur championships,

the Italian amateur championships, and I've joined