The Garden Of The Finzi Continis
by Vittorio De Sica
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Actor: Dominique Sanda, Fabio Testi, Helmut Berger, Lino Capolicchio, Romolo ValliDirector: Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Alain Katz
Writer: Cesare Zavattini
Writer: Franco Brusati
Writer: Giorgio Bassani
Writer: Tullio Pinelli
Writer: Ugo Pirro
Writer: Valerio Zurlini
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Garden Of The Finzi Continis
DVD Review: Elegant and Depressing.
Summary: 4 Stars
'The garden of the Finzi-Continis' has many elements which are aesthetically pleasing. The music has the lushness of a sad but beautiful nostalgia, while the cinematography is likewise gorgeous, but also gives an impression of mellowness and melancholy. Both musical and visual qualities contribute significantly to the feeling of the end of an era, an end which is fated to play out attended by great sorrow.
Most people, I'm sure, will recognize that the setting of the film - 1938 Italy under the Fascist dictatorship of Mussolini - guarantees that this is not a film likely to inspire happiness, particularly when the main characters are Jewish. And, true to what might be expected, it is an ultimately depressing story.
As I watched the film, I asked myself what the director was trying to accomplish with his presentation, other than to deliver it with impeccable artistry. The Finzi-Continis, a fabulously wealthy Jewish family were highly cultured and conducted their lives almost as aristocrats. To outsiders, Jew and non-Jew alike, they would have represented the pinnacle of the good life.
That the Finzi-Contini's wealth may have generated it's own vulnerabilities seems to be symbolically illustrated in the characters of the two siblings, Micol and Alfredo. Micol, having enjoyed the privileges of her family's position throughout her youth, has grown into a capricious and willful young woman. Although she appears to be good at heart, she is aloof, and even cruel and deceitful, toward the young Jewish man from a lower social position who has tried to pay court, eventually having an affair with his friend , who isn't Jewish. This suggests she has reached the epitome of upward mobility, and unable to respond to the advances of a social inferior, looks for gratification in a liaison with someone completely outside her traditional culture. Her brother, Alfredo, is an effeminate young man who seems to feel an attraction to her lover. He is in delicate health, and in fact, is suffering from a terminal illness. The self-indulgence of Micol and the weakness of Alfredo seem to foreshadow the collapse of the way of life which has nurtured them.
The irony of the situation is that while the various characters are enacting their personal dramas, there is a much more comprehensive and inhuman process enacting itself around them, which will soon swallow up all these individual lives, rendering all their dreams and aspirations invalid. While the Fascist's persecution of Jews is shown as the evil thing it is, it's hard to escape the suspicion that the film is also telling us, in the case of the Finzi-Continis, that people whose affluence becomes so disproportionate to that of others may be exhausting their viability. The portrayal of the middle-class Jewish family of Micol's would-be suitor is portrayed more sympathetically, showing their strong sense of solidarity and loyalty to tradition. De Sica's earlier film, "The Bicycle Thief", suggests that he felt a strong sympathy for the plight of the working poor, and strongly implied the need for social remedies; which contributes to my feeling that he viewed the elevated position of the Finzi-Continis with less than approval.
If De Sica intended a meaning to his film beyond simply being a realistic depiction of the travails wrought on his characters by the political events of the time, it seems to me he might have had several purposes: To dutifully acknowledge the evils of Italian Fascism under Mussolini, to point out the decadence produced from great personal fortunes, and to show that such wealth is no guarantee of safety when great social upheavals take place. This does not mean the film plays like a sermon. It is a well-crafted and interesting drama but, as previously noted, it will most likely bring you down.
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