The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

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.

One of the most celebrated foreign films in history, "The Garden of the Finzi-Contini" has been re-released so that people who missed it in 1971 can see the film restored as it was originally meant to be viewed -- then ask themselves WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT!!!!!

This film recounts the fall of a Jewish family during Mussolini's rise in Italy during World War II. The story follows Giorgio as he tries to surf outside his social class and win over the cute but cold-as-ice Micol. He fails, along with the film.

This is NOT a great film. Like many period pieces, it's a stately bore. The plot and character development take forever to build any steam. Just when you begin to care a little about the characters -- the movie ends. Or, more accurately, just stops, dead in in tracks, not a single plotline resolved. Characters just disappear along the way, randomly, with no dramatic impact. It's photography was way too detached from it's subject matter until it's too late. In the end, too frustrating to be entertaining and too boring to be thought-provoking.

THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS holds its audience at arm's length. As a result, Giorgio's romantic plight, which occupies considerable screen time, has a limited emotional impact. Since we never really get close to him, aspects of the movie are less compelling than they might otherwise have been. The film's often-detached perspective allows us to focus more clearly on presentation and issues, but at the expense of caring about the characters.

DeSica directed many masterpieces but this film does not qualify as a masterpiece nor does it stand the test of time.

`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.

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.

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!