The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) User Reviews (46)

Imperfect, but unforgettable

[DennisLittrell · 12 May 2001]

In this haunting work by Vittoria De Sica an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, serve as a symbol of European civilization in the hands of the brown shirts on the eve of World War II. Seeing it again after thirty years I find myself saddened almost as much by the story of a stillborn, unrequited love as I am by the horror of the cattle cars to come.

Dominique Sanda with her large, soft eyes is mesmerizing as the beautiful, enigmatic, but icy Micol Finzi-Contini. Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio) is her childhood friend, a boy from a middle-class Jewish family, now grown up. He's in love with her, but her feelings for him are that of a sister. He is confused by her warmth, and then as he tries to get close, her cool rejection. It has often been expressed metaphorically that Europe in the thirties was raped by fascism. However in this extremely disturbing film, De Sica is saying that it wasn't a rape, that the aristocracy of Europe (here represented by the Finzi-Continis of Ferrara, and in particular by the young and beautiful Micol) was a willing, even an eager, participant in the bestial conjoining.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is far from perfect; some would say it is also far from De Sica's best work. Certainly it comes after his prime. The editing is a little too severe in places, while some of the scenes are too loosely focused. Nonetheless this is an enormously powerful film that finds its climax in one of the most disturbing scenes in all of cinema. There is little point in discussing this film without looking at this scene. Consequently, for those of you who have not seen the film and do not want to risk having it spoiled for you, you should stop reading now and come back afterwards.

Everything in the movie works toward setting up the cabana scene. We see the dog several times, hinting at a crude, animalistic side to Micol. And there is the wall that separates the Finzi-Contini's garden of civilization from the brown shirts in the streets, a wall that also separates the rich from other people, particularly from the middle class who support the fascists (as we are told in the opening scene). We see Micol leading Giorgio by the hand about the estate, but always when he tries to caress her, she pulls away. Finally she explains to him why she doesn't love him. She says, "lovers want to overwhelm each other...[but]...we are as alike as two drops of water...how could we overwhelm and want to tear each other...it would be like making love with a brother..." But hearing these words is not enough. Giorgio goes to the wall one last time, sees a red bicycle there (red and black were the colors of the Nazi party) and knows that Micol is with someone else. He climbs the wall and finds the dog outside the cabana so that he knows she is within. In the opening scene she referred to the cabana with the German "Hütte," adding that now "we'll all have to learn German." What he sees when he looks through the window fills him with a kind of stupefying horror, as it does us. Not a word is spoken. He sees her, he sees who she is with and what the circumstances are. She sees him, turns on the light so that there can be no mistake and they stare wordlessly at one another. She projects not shame, but a sense of "This is who I am. I would say I'm sorry, but it wouldn't change anything. This is what I'm drawn to."

What is expressed in this essentially symbolic scene, acted out in sexual terms, is what happened to Europe. Micol is at once the love he wanted so much, deflowered by an anonymous, but clearly fascist man, and she is also the aristocracy of Europe, polluted by fascism.

I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the famous poem by Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," is also set in Ferrara. In that poem the narrator reveals himself through the unfeeling brutality of his speech and actions to be, although an aristocrat, an incipient fascist. I also wonder if De Sica is saying that the Jews in some sense contributed to the horror that befell them, and by extension, all of humanity. We see this expressed in the person of Giorgio's father who continually insists that it's not that bad yet, as step by step they lose their status as citizens, a prelude to the dehumanization that is the precursor of genocide. Certainly the closing scenes in which the Jews of Italy are seen to be compliant as they are led to the slaughter suggests as much. I know that the central feeling expressed by Jews after the war and especially in Israel was simply, never again. Nevertheless, there is a certain sense of the inevitable about this film that I find particularly disturbing. Passivity in sexual terms, a "giving in" to one's nature is one thing. A passivity in political terms is quite another, and yet it is part of the power of this film to show us how they are related in our psyches.

How Safe is Your World?

[Preston-10 · 10/10 · 3 May 2001]

Chances are, if you are only casually aware of the world that you live in, your life imitates that of the Finzi-Continis, one of two families depicted in this film.

The beginning of de Sica's film follows the state of affairs in Italy shortly after the Fascist government of Mussolini has declared the ordinary tennis clubs off limits for Italian Jews-just the beginning for the Government's separatist stance. The Jews in town react in various ways: Giorgio, who is in love with the daughter of the Finzi-Continis, is enraged; his father his philosophical; Giorgio's brother is upset only after being sent to France to study, and later, finding out to his horror about the German concentration camps. To the Finzi-Continis, though, it doesn't really matter. They're different from the other Jews because wealth and privilege have bred them into a family as proud as it is vulnerable. They hardly seem to know, or even care, about the fact that their rights are slowly being taken away. It seems that years of prestige and social status have put them above the laws of the land.

The walled garden of the Finzi-Continis is a symbol for the false security that people retain, unaware that problems on the outside may force them into reality. The garden of the film seems to promise that nothing will change and that everything will remain the same. Interestingly, de Sica films the garden in a way that enforces this theme of false security. He never orients us visually with the rest of the city, so we can never tell how big or how small the garden is. Have you ever felt uneasy being somewhere not knowing the exact dimensions of your boundary? That's the feeling we get here with shots of the garden that seem to stretch on forever.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is a great film for many reasons, one of which is how it forces us to take a proactive stance regarding the world that we live in. There's nothing wrong with feeling secure but it's important to try to take an objective stance with reference to the world that we live in. And you certainly don't want to be on the outside looking in to those who have realized it already.

Bittersweet and elusive...

[jawills · 22 May 2000]

In THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS -- based on the autobiographical novel by Giorgio Bassani -- legendary Neorealist filmmaker, Vittorio de Sica, dramatizes the human cost of the `racial laws' gradually implemented against the Jews in Fascist Italy during the years 1938-43. The more Bassani's young middle-class Jewish protagonist feels the brunt of Mussolini's anti-Semitic edicts encroaching upon him, the more he feels drawn to the aristocratic Jewish Finzi-Continis' estate -- their Edenic "garden" -- and to Micòl, the family's beautiful young daughter. Psychologically, this compulsion seems to stem from a deep emotional attachment to a perpetually innocent, untroubled state of childhood, which both Micòl and her garden seem to represent. Throughout the film, there is a marked conflict between childhood and adulthood, between the distant past and the immediate present, between the act of retreating into a world of comfortable illusions and confronting a world of harsh and bitter realities.

I found this particular aspect of the story very fascinating, although too tantalizingly obscure and open-ended -- and thus, not quite as illuminating or fulfilling as it might have been were it more clearly explained. (This could the reason why some people find the film -- and its heavily symbolic, impressionistic style -- a little confusing and underwhelming.)

For Giorgio -- both the naive hero and wisened author of the story -- Micòl embodies the mystery and allure of the Finzi-Continis, as well as their insularity and their apparent passivity in the face of the escalating Fascist crackdown. She always appears distant and unattainable, with no obvious reasons for her actions, and never really provides a direct, comprehensible explanation for her insistent rejection of Giorgio or for what appears to be a subtle streak of cruelty towards him. Her conversation with him always seems deliberately vague, and her refusal to make any further connection with him has a curious, almost perverse kind of fatalism about it. Again, this is another feature of the film that is certainly intriguing -- and strangely seductive -- but, alas, never quite pays off enough to become fully understandable to either the protagonist or the audience. When the Fascists finally do arrest the Finzi-Continis and confiscate their estate it comes as something of a surprise. The muted and deliberately spare representation of these characters and their feelings, as evidenced in their unusually restrained behavior, is meant to isolate and heighten the impact of a few devastating strokes of sudden realization and lucidity -- pointed indications that the protective spell of the Finzi-Continis has been finally broken.

All in all, well-acted and gorgeously, languidly poetic in its imagery...yet, narrative-wise, the picture seems overly elliptical and ultimately opaque -- and leaves just a few too many rough fragments and loose ends lingering at the end of the story (not quite Proustian irony, maybe?). In spite of this peculiar drawback, the film finishes very effectively, and by the final desolate shots, you are left with an unexpectedly intense feeling of loss and anguish. It is important to note, however, that the last scene -- in which Giorgio's father meets the Finzi-Continis in a detention center -- is fictitious and does not appear in the novel, and Bassani had a falling out with de Sica about this.

Reversed

[tedg · 2 February 2005]

De Sica is celebrated as the man who brought "neo-realism" to film, one of the three or four philosophies that still vie as motivation for the film enterprise. It is the notion that though film necessarily artificializes, it is possible to start with truth and deliberately enhance it cinematic ally. Because he relied on class struggle, viewers mistakenly associate that with the essence of neo-realism.

His early work is much celebrated, but as he aged and added layers and nuance, his relatively simpleminded audience was lost. Here we have a later masterpiece, not generally regarded as such.

The basic story is of two Jewish families, the impeding brutality of fellow Italians and different approaches to life and love in the knowing face of doom. At that level, it has some charm and power.

But what he has done is to invert all the values and superimpose them on the originals. Its a common technique in writing, and found of course in the novel.

We have the obvious: a relatively small garden within which the inhabitants blithely create an artificial world while the real world grinds down upon them. The garden is in Europe, but it is also Europe.

As I say, That's obvious. Also common (far too common) is the placement of sexual mechanics in political mechanics as if one explains the other while they cause each other. Ho Hum.

But there are three other elements, and these I appreciate. While he is reversing things and overlaying them, he casts accordingly. The European fiction was that Jews were dark, earthy people. Hairy, monetary, shrewd, animal. Yet the actors who play the Jews are according to cinematic conventions of Aryans: light haired, light skinned, svelte. Their manner is similarly cinematic (and the Nazi/fascist movement was inherently cinematic): completely unconcerned about money and politics and instead concerned about poetry and idleness. Roles reversed: we know this for certain when the (Jewish) girl tells her (non-Jewish) suitor he is not her type; too communist and too hairy.

There's another, explicit inversion: the thing is a movie, but the anchor of reality within it is, well, movies. Three times. Plus our hero goes from Passover at his house where the family is singing something vapid to the Finzi-Continis where they are doing something movie-like" looking into a glass to see the future.

Third: we know this is not straight-on narrative, because the camera has a habit of drifting out of the narrative frame. Kar-Wai is the current master of this and for the same reason.

Naturally, underlying it all is that this is not the work of fascists or Nazis, but of Italians and Germans. Not few, but many, essentially all. Because of that one thing, I find this more powerful than "Schindler's List." Sure, his people were more demonstrably evil, but so are all his villains in his fakey worlds. It doesn't make it real if he shows real history in the same theatrical way. No, for real evil we have to see how ordinary it is.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

a garden of no delights for those who ran afoul of the state

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 4 August 2005]

The Italian people probably felt a moral degradation knowing that their government had participated in exterminating Jews during WWII. "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" was probably their way of showing that they were atoning for it. It tells of the Jewish Finzi-Contini family in Ferrara in the 1930s. They are a very well off family (with a false sense of security), and many of the people within the family are falling for each other. Unfortunately for them, not even their social status can protect them from the doom that awaits them.

Much like in "The Bicycle Thief" over 20 years earlier, Vittorio De Sica shows the desperate existences of a few people, surrounded by what many incorrectly assumed to be a joyful world. Wonderful.

A great adaptation from a freat novel

[jeanserge21 · 10/10 · 23 July 2006]

I first heard a radio adaptation from the Garden of the Finzi Contini and afer that read the book. I thought it would be difficult to make an adaptation to cinema. Indeed, the book is above all psychological (or romantic in the literary meaning of the 19th century)i.e the narrator describing his inner world and his sufferings...

However, Vittorio de Sica succeeded in expressing this without using monologue, without making a too slow picture... The music is very good too... the images are wonderful...

I must correct some commentaries Malnate, Micol's lover is not a fascist but a communist... There is also a difference with the book : in the book we do not know for sure that Micol and Malnate were lovers, it is an assumption whereas it is an evidence in the film...

In spite of this differences, this picture deserves a 10 out of 10!

A blurry commentary on the danger of isolationism...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 3 October 2006]

Maddeningly slow-moving account of an aristocratic Italian family during the onset of World War II who conveniently ignore what is going on in the world beyond their fabled garden of contentment. It's all rather prettily photographed so that a dreamlike spell blurs much of the story and keeps the audience just as isolated from reality as the characters who inhabit THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI.

It's a pretentious sort of film that Vittorio deSica has fashioned to illustrate what happened when Europeans isolated themselves from the ruthless turn of events that unfolded once Hitler and Mussolini came into power. Well acted by a competent cast that includes HELMUT BERGER and DOMINIQUE SANDA, it's hard to work up much interest in characters that are treated with such detachment by the screenplay.

It moves predictably toward the crushing humiliation of defeat with passive Italians being marched off to suffer their fate in concentration camps, a downbeat ending to an offbeat film.

Summing up: Will appeal mostly to the art house trade.

Hardly a "masterpiece"

[bregund · 5/10 · 1 September 2022]

This shallow, flat film with unengaging characters and one-note storyline seems to want to say something but, muffled by the ponderous weight of its clothing budget and cinematography, fails to connect with the viewer in any meaningful way. I'm always amused by how many "masterpieces" there are in IMDB comments, a word that's usually reserved for things that are exceptional. Is it exceptional to endure an entire film filled with the exact same scene over and over, where Giorgio and Micol are on the verge of becoming a couple but then she shoos him away? You can only watch that so many times before it becomes irritating. On top of all that, the continuity gaps are confusing...one moment Malnate is off to war, the next moment his death is casually announced by the main character. How? When? Where? At the end of the film, Giorgio and the rest of the family have been safely removed to the countryside. How? When? Where? You'll have to imagine it, because you won't see it in the film. Confusing.

Haunting DeSica film

[rosscinema · 8/10 · 15 October 2003]

This was probably Vittorio DeSica's last excellent film before his death in 1974 and it took me about 20 years to view it a second time. I certainly understand it more this time than the first time I viewed it. Story is set in the late 1930's in Ferrara, Italy with the impending war looming on the horizon. The family of the Finzi-Continis are rich and Jewish and live in a huge manor behind locked gates and they love to have friends over for picnics and tennis. One of the friends is Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio) and he is in love with Micol Finzi-Contini (Dominique Sanda) and they have known each other since they both were kids but Micol does not love Giorgio. He's persistent in his affections but Micol lives in an isolated world hidden behind the gates and her demeanor is very cold and malicious. Meanwhile, Giorgio's father (Romolo Valle) seems to be oblivious to what is happening in the world and utters "It's not that bad". Mussolini has enacted laws that forbid Jews from going to school, entering the library and other restrictions. One night Giorgio discovers Micol having an affair with his more Fascist friend Bruno (Fabio Testi) and Micol notices him in the window but seems not to care.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

While DeSica somewhat abandoned his neo-realism approach later in his career this does have an aura of those wonderful films like "The Bicycle Thief" and "Umberto D". DeSica still wanted to show the world what it was like in Italy during the darker times and even though he had a larger budget and professional actors in his films his attitude never really shifted. This film is primarily about the two lead characters played by Capolicchio and Sanda. Even with war upon them they both seemed to be in their own world. Giorgio became a very angry and heartbroken man and even with soldiers walking around his city he seemed to only care about Micol's rejection of him. But late in the film he did snap out of it and escaped. He didn't allow what happened to him to get the better of him. Unfortunately, Micol and her family waited too long and were rounded up to be sent to camps. There are instances in this film that I thought Micol was awaiting to be taken by the Fascists and Nazi's. It's one of the reasons she slept with Bruno and seemed unperturbed by the events around her. Remember what Giorgio's father told him? He said, "In life, in order to understand, to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it's better to die young, when there's still time left to recover and live again". After viewing this thought provoking film once again, maybe DeSica was showing us that Micol needed to get out of her haven and understand the world about her.

the music during the final credits

[delgrandegl · 10/10 · 3 October 2006]

I just watched the DVD and had not seen the movie in many years. I found it every bit as moving as I had remembered from my first viewing. This included the Prayer For the Dead (El Moleh Rachamim) magnificently sung as the final credits rolled. I am not Jewish so I had to do some "googling" to learn that El Moleh...is indeed a prayer for the dead. What moved me so apart from the singer's mournfully beautiful voice were the names Aushwitz, Maidenek, Treblinka et. al. interpolated into the text. It reminded me of the penultimate paragraph in Andre Schwartz-Bart's extraordinary novel of the Holacaust, The Last Of The Just where the names of the death camps are artfully placed among the repeated words "And praised Be The Lord". Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

One of the best - the tragedy is its continued timeliness

[eschetic · 9/10 · 12 August 2005]

While undeniably not for the shallow or those who expect their movies to lay every detail out for them amid plenty of "action," THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS (a parable on a latter day "Eden" of doomed innocence?) remains after more than a quarter century one of the most perfect reflections of the gradual process by which the Holocaust could have happened in a Europe which believed itself civilized.

The tragic love story allows us into the garden. Only our own action - or blind ignorance - can allow us out.

Not a lot need be added to the perceptive comments already examining the details of this beautiful and moving film - but Americans, especially those of my fellow Republicans who are able to objectively look at their own country and leaders, should seriously examine the politicians who use fear and nebulous "enemies" to gain and hold power in the light of this film. The realization is inescapable that the world of the Finzi-Continis is not that far removed from our own. A question of degree not of kind.

The garden is still seductively attractive, the country around it still relatively free, but will we follow the course the Finzi-Continis took or will we come actively out of our garden while there is time?

Underrated Holocaust film by Vittorio de Sica

[tieman64 · 10 November 2009]

"Nostalgia is self destruction." – Adrienne Rich

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" takes place in fascist Italy during the reign of Mussolini. World War 2 is on the horizon and already racial laws are being implemented. Italian Jews have been banned from public schools, marrying non Jews, phone records, libraries, obituaries, using servants and are subject to strict curfews. Gradually the rights of Jews are eradicated, even the wealthiest Jewish families reduced to third class citizens. Slowly a race is made invisible.

Against this backdrop is told the story of two Jewish families, the affluent and aristocratic Finzi-Contini family and the middle class Bassani family. The Finzi-Continis live a cloistered existence within the confines of their palatial estate. Surrounded by tall walls and a vast garden, the family lives in a dream world, believing that fascism will leave their lavish lives untouched. Director Vittorio de Sica uses overexposed, bleached images and white clothing to suggest that these wealthy Jews live within an almost idyllic haven. When the family hosts tennis games for friends and family, de Sica shoots them like innocent forest nymphs, frolicking in Eden.

Of course, outside the stone walls of the Finzi-Contini estate, trouble brews. The Bassani family adjusts to Mussolini's racist laws with success at first, their father stating that despite their new limitations they can still live a reasonably secure existence. Their daughter will simply have to be home schooled, their maid will have to be smuggled in and their son, Giorgio, will simply have to use the private libraries of friends. No big deal. They can adjust. Right?

The widespread complacency is shocking. It's not just a question of non-Jews ignoring these racist laws, but of Jews accepting these laws outright for fear of rocking the boat. The Bassani's submit and the Finzi-Contini's ignore. And even if they wanted to challenge Mussolini's racist segregation policies, how would they go about doing so? During one scene, in which Giorgio is kicked out of a public library, de Sica makes it clear that when the world begins to collapse, it's never anyone's fault. Power is fragmented and everyone is fearfully following orders, obeying rules that somebody else devised. Everything is compartmentalised, sectioned off and objections are funnelled through never-ending mazes. To fight an organised system would take organised dissent on a vast array of fronts.

And so Jews and Gentiles submit to the racist laws. The war will be over soon, they hope, and Italy and Germany will soon emerge victorious. Just abide and hope that things change. Right? Big mistake.

The second half of the film focuses on the romance between Giorgio Bassani and Micol Finzi-Contini. Despite Micol's wealth and beauty, Giorgio loves her primarily for the sense of tranquillity she represents. He knew her during her childhood, and so begins to see her as an almost nostalgic symbol. She represents a snapshot in time, a personification of Europe before things went bad. Many have complained that Micol is a cipher in the film. That she prowls her estate like a zombie and that she never gives a reason for rejecting Giorgio's advances. But this is the film's very point. Micol is an idealised vision of the world, simultaneously deluding herself and representative of mass denial. She is a ghost, the past, and Giorgio cannot attain her because she has long turned her back to the living world.

This romance thus abstracts many of the themes that take place in the film. Firstly, it illustrates the false belief held by both Gentiles and Jews that if they isolate themselves and mind their own business, they may be spared the horrors of this hostile political climate. Secondly, it shows that no amount of wealth, prestige and education can defend you against mindless, irrational bigotry. Finally, it highlights the dangers of Jewish ethnocentricity. To many, Judaism is a cultural fortresses that keeps outsiders out and insiders in (the degree to which Jewish communities are isolated from their host cultures is even reflected at the genetic level). Of course, one should not have to assimilate to avoid persecution, but this ethnocentricity is one reason why Jewish history is one of success and growth followed by persecution and slaughter. A cycle which plays out repeatedly from the Egyptian Exodus to the Holocaust. Beyond this, the the behaviour of all the film's characters echo that of German, Italian and International communities, who, during WW2, were likewise guilty of both dangerous conformity and violent disinterest.

9/10 – Western Holocaust films have colonised our minds with a very "American view" of the Holocaust. They present us with false iconography, freak show myths which exploit visual touchstones. But the Holocaust was not a horror movie. It unfolded with the banality of everyday life, in bright colours, ordinary day to day activities rarely upset. There was nothing alien about the Holocaust. The world didn't break down or erupt into violence. Instead it stood back with a serene, far more chilling acceptance. Perhaps this is why, today, documentary footage of Hitler relaxing with his family in the Bavarian Alps is far more horrific than any of his loud mouthed speeches.

See Lina Wertmüller's "Seven Beauties" and Lajos Koltai's "Fateless". Worth multiple viewings.

Certainly a very good film, but not the masterpiece everyone has touted it as being (8/10)

[zetes · 8/10 · 7 October 2000]

SPOILERS AHEAD:

There are many, many movies about WWII, both about the battles and about the condition of life for the people involved, especially the situation of the Jews in Europe. When someone makes a movie on this latter subject, it is very difficult for anyone to criticize it. 1998's _Life is Beautiful_ received some criticism, but mainly because it contained comic elements where people felt there should be only tragedy. But if the film is a drama, then it is basically untouchable by critics and viewers. And as for this film itself, it was directed by an old master who had been out of it for a while. Even if the film was terrible, there was no way, when it came out in the early 70s, that anyone was going to call it less than a masterpiece, an instant classic, if you will.

Well, this film is in no way terrible. In fact, it is very good. It affected me enough where I did tear up a bit. I was touched at certain points. But I also was acutely aware of some of the film's shortcomings as I watched.

First off, the reason why I teared up, i.e., what I did like about the film especially: the relationship between Georgio and Micol. I connected with it instantly because I have been through similar circumstances. It is rather painful, let me tell you. I longed for Micol right along side with Georgio, and felt utterly rejected simultaneously with him. This is the way one should experience a great film. There were two more relationships that were really well developed and deeply felt by me, both involving Georgio: Georgio and his father, a very good character played by a marvelous actor, and Georgio and Malnate.

The rest of the characters were very sloppily made. Did Alberto Finzi-Contini exist for any other reason than to create that great funeral procession scene? He was barely in the movie at all. I had thought they had forgotten him for a long time, then they finally came back to him, and he was next to death. The Finzi-Contini family was hardly existent. I thought the father was a butler until very near the end of the film. A cheap joke is made about the centegenarian grandmother's inability to hear well (although this character had a very poignant scene at the very end of the film).

Possibly the biggest problem of the film is that the scenes dealing with anti-Semitism and the onset of war never really coalesced with the problems surrounding Micol's and Georgio's relationship. The latter theme dominated the film, while the former only appeared in the background. This structure would have been fine, but the background section of the film never seemed to influence much the foreground. Georgio could have just as easily have fallen in love with Micol without the war going on. This is not what puts stress on their relationship. Possibly the main theme that de Sica was trying to get through in the film was that our personal lives do not naturally care about what is happening in society, but society keeps trying to push its way into our personal lives. Unfortunately, it only works to a certain extent. The film was too short for its subject matter. It is only 94 minutes long. If it had been two hours or even two and a half, the two parts would have fit together better and the main theme would have been a lot more potent. One of my very favorite films has the exact same theme: _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, where people attempt to love each other in Czechoslovakia while the Soviets oppress them. It is three hours long, and it works on every level. In _The Garden of the Finzi-Contini_, there is not even time for a proper conclusion. Micol's story is finished, or at least as finished as it needs to be, but what happened to Georgio? His father just informs us that he left. Why can't we see him leave? We don't need an enormous explanation from him, but just a subtle scene, as is the film's style, where he packs and talks to his mother maybe. Surely he hasn't gotten Micol out of his mind that quickly. I realize it was in his best interests to get the heck out of Italy right away, but I can't believe he doesn't at least think for a moment whether or not he should do something on Micol's behalf. I'm fine that he doesn't. I would bet that in the novel, this sort of scene appears. It should have also been in the film. I give the film an 8/10, mostly for the true-to-life pain it caused me concerning the one-sided love.

A beautiful, poignant masterpiece.

[dalben · 2 January 1999]

The Finzi-Continis are a wealthy and privileged Italian family. It is shortly before WWII, a time when the Fascists are slowly taking away the rights and livelihoods of Jews, including the Finzi-Continis.

But none of this seems to pass the walls of their magnificent garden, where the children Micol and Alberto often invite their friends. One of their friends, Georgio, is hopelessly in love with the beautiful Micol. The way this film evokes such youthful, quixotic yearning, or a woman's growing awareness of physical beauty's power, is splendid.

The sadness I felt at the end came from knowing all along what would happen to all of them, rich and not-so-rich, and that they didn't recognize what lay in store for them until it was too late. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis was Vittorio De Sica's last hurrah, a masterpiece of neorealism, and timeless evocation of a time lost.

A powerful film

[uscoa · 9/10 · 24 October 2000]

`The Garden of the Finzi-Continis' stands out from the scores of films about the Fascist persecution of Jews due, in no small part, to director Vittorio De Sica. His veteran hands crafting an excellent story into a masterpiece.

The story focuses on a young Italian-Jew and his interaction and quest for romance with the daughter of a wealthy Jewish aristocrat. The trials of their relationship coming during the growth of Fascism in Italy in the late-1930s. Even the viewer can feel the segregation closing on the two young people and their families.

But even the superb drama of the film cannot hold a candle to the awesome cinematography of beautiful scenery that adds vitality to the film. The acting is good, mostly from the supporting cast, but occasional spouts of brilliance come from all directions.

Exceptional. 9/10 stars.

A stunner

[JasparLamarCrabb · 10/10 · 17 May 2013]

A stunner. Vittorio De Sica's late career masterpiece exposes the hopeless plight a lot of Italian Jews faced as the lunatic Mussolini got further and further into bed with Hitler during WWII. The Finzi-Continis, a well-to-do family of intellectuals fail to realize the rising tide of anti-semitism around them as their vast estate becomes more and more a sanctuary for their equally blind friends. Unrequited love and missed chances at romance are dwarfed in importance as the Nazis move in. This is a very unsettling movie as you're well aware of what is going to happen to these people. De Sica (and five or six uncredited scriptwriters) creates a real sense of dread and the film is populated with an excellent cast. Lino Capolicchio is the standout, hopelessly in love with Finzi-Contini débutante Dominique Sanda. As Sanda's infirm brother, Helmut Berger personifies an entire race of people about to be systematically eliminated. Fabio Testi and Romolo Valli (excellent as Capolicchio's grotesquely optimistic father) are in it too.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

[jboothmillard · 7/10 · 17 January 2014]

I think I only just remembered that I read about this Italian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, because it is an unusual title, but with the high critics rating it was one I definitely looked forward to trying, from director Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D.). Basically set in the late 1930's, in Ferrara, Italy, a group of young friends are banned from playing tennis at regular clubs, so they do so in grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi- Contini, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family, the two young Finzi-Contini are brother Alberto (Helmut Berger) and sister Micol (Dominique Sanda). We see a series of flashbacks of Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), middle class Jewish childhood friend to Micol, and how he used to be looking for him having feelings for her, and the two of them got somewhat closer from being friends to him having special attention from her, he tries at one point to make an advance, but she rejects him. Alberto meanwhile has fragile health, and has a close friendship with darkly handsome Bruno Malnate (Fabio Testi), and Giorgio's Father (Romolo Valli) feels the Finzi-Contini don't seem all that Jewish at all, but the family is perhaps overwhelmed by wealth, privilege and generations to be as proud as vulnerable to the realities of what is going on around them. Giorgio, who is definitely in love with Micol is a frequent visitor in the library at the Finzi-Contini's villa, and Micol does seem to show return feeling, but following a visit to Venice and her uncles she rejects all his affection, and continues an affair with Bruno, Giorgio seems them naked together through a window and is heartbroken, so he gets comfort from his father. By 1943 the Germans have invaded the Soviet Union, and all the young Jewish people who hung around the family estate have been arrested, Alberto dies from his sickness, the Finzi-Continis are finally seized by the Nazi army and taken into isolation, packed into a former classroom and separated from each other, the fate for all the many Jewish people of Ferrara in this space is that they will all be sent to concentration camps, the film ends with the final happy images of Micol, Alberto, Giorgio's brother Ernesto (Raffaele Curi) and Bruno playing tennis, with death music playing in the background. Also starring Camillo Angelini-Rota as Micol's Father - Prof. Ermanno Finzi-Contini, Katina Morisani as Micol's Mother and Inna Alexeievna as Micol's Grandmother. I will be honest and say that most of the pleasant material before the last twenty to thirty minutes were fine, the family and friends bonding is good, but for me the most memorable scenes are the horrific sights of the Jewish people you know are doomed to the fate of the holocaust, but throughout there is great music, good colourful and later faded imagery and all in all a good feeling humanity tested, it is an interesting Second World War drama. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and it was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and it won the BAFTA for the UN Award, and it was nominated for Best Cinematography. Very good!

In the Garden of the Elite

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 10 April 2007]

Director Vittorio De Sica eschews the neo-realism that defined his earliest work and takes a more poetic approach with this story about a wealthy, privileged family who shut themselves away from the encroaching threat of fascism in the early days of WWII Italy. They ultimately find that their elite status does not protect them from the fascist threat, and the quietly devastating ending shows the family being separated, perhaps forever, as they are rounded up and herded into lines like so much cattle.

The ending makes this film memorable, but everything proceeding it struck me as rather lightweight, given the subject matter. This isn't a movie I think back on as a masterpiece, and I think its reputation rests somewhat on the fact that De Sica, a respected master, directed it.

Grade: B+

Potentially powerful characters marred by the weak editing and uncertain dialog

[steiner-sam · 5/10 · 30 October 2021]

It's set from 1938-1943 in Ferrara, Italy, and follows the lives of four young adults during these years of Mussolini's rule of Fascist Italy. It's based on a 1962 novel of the same title Giorgio Bassani.

Micòl Finzi Contini (Dominique Sanda) and her brother, Alberto (Helmut Berger), are the children of the very wealthy Finzi Contini family. They are Jewish but seem undisturbed by the increasing restrictions on Jews as they live behind walls on their massive estate, symbolized by a tennis court to which Micòl and Alberto invite Jewish and non-Jewish friends. Giorgio (Lino Capolicchi) is among those friends, the son of a modestly pro-Mussolini Jewish family but lower on the social scale than the Finzi Continis. Giorgio is unhappy with his father's political stance. Another friend is Giampiero Malnate (Fabio Testi), a non-Jewish socialist who becomes friends with Giorgio through the film.

Micòl and Giorgio have been friends since school days, but Micòl does not return Giorgio's desire for a romantic relationship. For some time, he avoids visiting Micòl, especially after she rejects one last attempt to win her. After Italy enters the war in 1940, Giampiero is drafted into the military. Giorgio is not drafted because he is Jewish.

By the end of the film, set in 1943, we learn the unhappy fate of the main characters and their families. It closes with an image of the empty tennis court.

As in all films with subtitles, it's sometimes difficult to judge the quality of the dialog. I found the editing choppy, as I did with the similarly-themed "The Damned." I thought a 1971 film could have been more competently executed. Nevertheless, it felt like a brave effort to interpret a worthy theme based on a complex novel. Dominique Sanda, Fabio Testi, and Lino Capolicchi have potentially powerful characters marred by the weak editing and uncertain dialog.

Underwhelmed

[lasttimeisaw · 6/10 · 17 December 2013]

Another 70s Oscar BEST FOREIGN PICTURE victor, from the versatile Italian actor/director Vittorio De Sica, in fact this is only my second De Sica's film (after MARRIAGE Italian STYLE 1964, 8/10 and disregarding the medley BOCCACCIO '70 1962, 6/10), thus admittedly a major motivating force to watch this one is the star appeal, namely Sanda and Berger.

Sanda, whom I recently discovered from Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST (1970, 9/10), plays Micòl, the young daughter of the aristocratic Jewish Finzi-Contini family in Ferrara in the late 1930s, is the love interest of Giorgio (Capolicchio), from another Jewish but lower-class family, although they have been childhood sweethearts, Giorgio's courtship has yet come off. Meanwhile Micòl's effeminately indisposed brother Alberto (Berger) brings his burly friend Bruno (Testi) to the family and initially Micòl antagonizes him with her affected pomposity, but the ensuing happenings will dish Giorgio's hope and Micòl eventually turns out to be a token victim of the tumult and a failed attempt to dare the purity of Jewish ethnicity.

As a war drama of ordinary people being shoved haphazardly by the humanity-defying heinous torrent of rabidness, the movie (maybe also Bassani's source material) obviously don't want to lay bare the ugly truth with pulverizing segments which one can generally assume would happen during the persecution of those Jews (cautiously the film finishes right before that), everything meanders with tepid temperature and sensuous palette, from jovial time on bicycle to the final illusory tennis court flashbacks (the difference between De Sica and Antonioni is immediate), but at any rate, it is wanting a bang to emanate the revelation which is always up in the air, not even the reveal of Micòl's lover with Sanda's bare-chest audacity and soul-searching stare.

Like Visconti, De Sica evinces ethereal and superior beauty from his young cast, say no more to knockouts like Sanda and Berger (who is purely existed for his godsend delicacy and impeccable face), even an ordinary-looking Capolicchio and the future action star Testi, have been sculpted meticulously with soft light and fond close-ups. Valli, on the other hand, is prominent as Giorgio's father, illustrates lucidly as a spokesman for an elder generation frustrated by their fate and also impotent to save their children.

As a double winner for an Oscar and a Golden Berlin Bear, it doesn't live up to my expectation, maybe it is a common attribute for Italian melodrama, its across-the-board appeal dwindles as time passes by, Visconti's SENSO (1954, 7/10) is too saccharine for my palate and this one is somewhat rather undemanding under the reigns of a maestro like De Sica.

Beautiful

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 16 March 2017]

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading families, wealthy, aristocratic, urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a circle of friends for constant rounds of tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, keeping the rest of the world at bay. Into the circle steps Giorgio, a Jew from the middle class who falls in love with Micol.

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. It won the Golden Bear at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival in 1971. It is considered de Sica's penultimate film, though this depends on how you count.

The film itself is very beautiful, and the quality would make me think 1980s more than 1970. Italian cinema tends to be behind American cinema in technology, and I am quite impressed with what they were able to achieve here. It really is something of a masterpiece in the look. The characters are well fleshed-out, and I am not surprised that some of the actors went on to bigger things (e.g. Helmut Berger).

One thing that strikes me as interesting today (2017) is how films around the Holocaust have been consistently successful in awards season. This was almost 50 years ago, and today we still get the Holocaust film again and again. That is not a criticism of the filmmakers. There is no story more powerful in the last 100 years. It just strikes me as interesting how film has chosen that as the nexus, the focal point. You might think American films would try to pivot to 9/11 (admittedly a far, far smaller event), but this has not really happened.

an excellent view of the coming holocaust in Italy

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 28 June 2005]

I liked this film as it approached the holocaust from a completely DIFFERENT direction. Most outside of Italy have no idea about this country's part in the holocaust, but it was quite different from what occurred in Germany. In Italy, Mussolini was supported by Jews and gentiles alike and it was only AFTER the war began that Mussolini began to implement antisemitic laws in order to please Hitler. How he and the people of Italy adopted this was amazing and rather sudden.

The movie begins in 1938 and all seems well for the Jewish families portrayed in the movie. Much of the beginning and middle of the movie concerns Giorgio's unrequited infatuation with Micòl Finzi Contini. Although this makes up the bulk of the movie, it is only the background for the more sinister goings on in the country. You see, as the years unfold, more and more restrictions are placed on the Jews and more and more of their rights are eroded. When this first began, the faith of Giorgio's father in their fascist government is unwavering--Mussolini is STILL his hero. However, as the movie continues, his optimism turns to pessimism until he and the Finzi Contini family are rounded up for deportation to the extermination camps by the film's end. Giorgio, it seems has escaped as have other members of his family. However, the exact fate of EVERYONE in the movie (except for Micol's brother) is left uncertain at the conclusion. I liked this, as life, particularly in the case of the holocaust, is far from certain and it seems to work well.

Background

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 18 August 2010]

There is a really good review of this movie by another user (his summary is "imperfect but unforgettable"), so if you can check that out please. If you read it, you will also understand that there is a lot of (background) knowledge/info in this comment. Which begs the question: Do you have to know all of this (like the poem that utilizes the same location?) to fully understand and enjoy this movie? Or is it possible to watch it without prior knowledge?

It's a difficult question to answer. But as it is, I can only answer that this indeed is unforgettable. It's story core is really heavy and while there are some sub-stories interwoven into this, you always have this feeling of uncertainty running through it. Still the characters are not far from blandness and never fully engage you. The story seems confusing (though it is simple enough, it seems to be more complicated), which takes you a bit off it. (or that could be the case, depending on your concentration on it) There is space for improvement on this, though it does not take anything away from the ending ...

A dumb and boring romance saved by Vittorio De Sica's unusual War Conflicts.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 6/10 · 8 October 2021]

Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini / The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) : Brief Review -

A dumb and boring romance saved by Vittorio De Sica's unusual War Conflicts. Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini bored me for a while, actually many times. I was literally saying the dialogues a moment before the character would say it on screen. It was that predictable. The film is based upon Giorgio Bassani's 1962 novel of the same name which tells the story of the Finzi-Continis, a noble family of Ferrara, during the Jewish persecution in Italy's 1930s. Giorgio and Micol are childhood friends and even have feelings for each other but Micol turns him down because the mixed marriage is banned in the country. Giorgio somehow survives this heartache but can't forget her and comes back. That scene when he comes back her house to meet her and says, 'I love you,' and i was like holy smoke. What the hell is this? A 1920's silent film or what? About three-minute slow scene just to say this and expectedly she denies and finally he says the same thing again that, 'I won't come here again'. Hey buddy, she said the same already then why the hell did you not understand it? And after that, the same silly follow-up. He tails her House and finds her naked with the man she despises. What the hell? Dear Vittorio De Sica, i am a big fan of your work but what the bloody heck was that? Were you making a melodrama in 1920s? I just couldn't digest the fact that the intellegent director like Sica chose such a dumb romance to show War conflicts of Italy. Thankfully, the war conflicts came out fine i mean that was expected because that's something realistic and artistic instead of that soap opera of childhood love becoming sort of obsession in the age when one is supposed to be more matured. Their country and society is about to be torn off and what his friends and Father had to ask him, that how's relation with Micol.. seriously? Well, this one is Sica's weakest in my opinion.

RATING - 6/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Should have followed the original novel more closely

[JamesHitchcock · 8/10 · 4 April 2022]

Giorgio Bassani's novel "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is set in the northern Italian city of Ferrara in 1938/39, the last months of peace in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. It is a novel focuses less on plot than on an evocation of the atmosphere of a particular place and time. The narrator, unnamed in the novel but here named Giorgio, is, like Bassani himself, a member of Ferrara's Jewish community, and the novel chronicles the early stages of the persecution of Italian Jews which was to culminate in the deaths of many in the Holocaust. For most of its history, in fact, Mussolini's regime was not anti-Semitic, and many Jews even joined the Fascist Party, attracted by an ideology that seemed to stress national unity above regional, religious and class differences. By 1938, however, the regime, which had at one time been critical of Nazi anti-Semitism, had come to value its alliance with Germany above all else and introduced a series of racial laws dividing Italians into Gentiles and Jews and restricting the participation of the latter in society.

At first Giorgio, a university student, is not affected too much by these developments. He is thrown out of the city library but is not prevented from completing his degree, and blackballed from his exclusive tennis club. Although he is a keen tennis player, this last does not worry him too much as the wealthy Finzi-Contini family, who have previously kept rather aloof, allow their fellow Jews and a few other friends to use their private tennis court. Giorgio falls in love with Micòl, the beautiful daughter of the Finzi-Continis.

Although Micòl and Giorgio are initially close friends, she rejects him when he wants their relationship to develop into something deeper. In the novel her motives for doing so remain ambiguous, but in the film it is made clear that she has fallen in love with, and begun a sexual relationship with Giorgio's friend Giampiero Malnate. This change was a controversial one; Bassani himself disliked it, and I can understand why. The novel, where there is no other man in Micòl's life, presents us with an example of creative ambiguity. We can, if we wish, simply infer that Micòl does not return Giorgio's love, but Bassani also leaves open the possibility that she does love him but, in view of the impending catastrophe looming over the world, is afraid of emotional commitment and of entering a relationship which may end in tragedy. The film excludes this second possibility, which I think weakens the story. Having experienced both situations, I can say from experience that rejection by someone who is nevertheless still in love with you is emotionally far more painful than rejection by someone who does not love you.

Not content with providing an answer to a question which Bassani preferred to leave unanswered, the director Vittorio de Sica also introduces ambiguity where Bassani preferred to be clear. The film does not end in 1939, but continues the story of the Finzi-Continis into the war years, although it leaves their ultimate fate uncertain. Bassani, however, made it clear that family died in a concentration camp in 1943. (The novel is narrated in retrospect from a post-war viewpoint). Again, this weakens the story. The novel falls within a literary tradition of first-person novels in which the narrator looks back nostalgically at the lost world of his or her youth, a world to which he or she can, for one reason or another, no longer return. (Other examples include Alain-Fournier's "Le Grand Meaulnes", and Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited"). And yet the world to which Bassani looks back is more than just a Land of Lost Content. That world is not just closed to the narrator; it is a world which has been utterly destroyed. This point is made far more strongly in the novel than in the film.

Having said that, this is in many ways a decent film. It is certainly a visually attractive one, with De Sica's atmospheric photography of the old city of Ferrara contributing to the mood of wistful nostalgia. (I was surprised by how much snow the Po Valley seems to get; like many Brits I had imagined that snow in sunny Italy is something confined to the high mountains of the Alps and Apennines). I would, however, have preferred it if de Sica had followed Bassani's plot more closely. 8/10.