The Garden of the Finzi Continis

The Garden of the Finzi Continis
by Vittorio De Sica

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Actor: Dominique Sanda, Fabio Testi, Helmut Berger, Lino Capolicchio, Romolo Valli
Director: 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: 1.85:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures

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.

DVD Review: For patient viewers
Summary: 4 Stars

The Bottom Line:

There's no getting around the fact that The Garden of the Finzi-Continis often moves at a glacial pace, but if you stick with it until the ending it might be able to move you too; a different style of Holocaust story than I'm accustomed to and one told with intelligence, it's a movie I'm glad I watched even though I never want to watch it again.

3/4

DVD Review: Poignant and beautiful historical drama about an Italian Jewish family
Summary: 5 Stars

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is an Italian movie that is based on the autobiographical novel by Giorgio Bassino and tells the story of the narrator [Giorgio's] relationship with the Finzi-Continis in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. The film won a couple of awards, most notably, the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1971.

The story for the most part stays quite faithful to the novel and focuses on the relationship between Giorgio [Lino Capolicchio] and the Finzi-Continis, especially the two Finzi-Contini children, siblings Alberto [ Helmut Berger] and Micol [Dominique Sanda]. Giorgio is infatuated with Micol and believes himself genuinely in love with her. Micol on the other hand has this mysterious aura about her and seems almost melancholic for much of the movie [perhaps indicating a foreshadowing of her own future?] and rebuffs Giorgio's advances leaving him much frustrated but undaunted.

Amidst the personal drama, there is also the rising threat of Fascism, and from the beginning of the movie we know that the Jews already have strict impositions on their lives, not being able to play tennis in places designated for Aryans etc. The gardens that surround the Finzi-Continis' large estate provide a place for the youngsters to gather, but as the movie progresses, we come to realise that even the great wall that surrounds the estate does not provide refuge for its' occupants, especially after Mussolini allies himself with the Nazis and enters WW II.

The movie is very well-filmed, seeming almost surrealistic at times and ethereal in its beauty. Giorgio is caught between his innocent past [childhood] and the stark realities of his present. Micol seems to float through life, seeming detached and cold, almost as if she senses the tragedy that is about to befall her and her family.

All in all, this is a poignant period drama that chronicles the lives of Italian Jews under the menace of Fascism and Nazism and the eventual tragedy of the Holocaust.

DVD Review: Loved it!
Summary: 5 Stars

Are you only a fan of escapist fiction? If so, this movie is DEFINITELY NOT for you. That is a fact. I like escapist fiction, butvI also like films and literature filled with lush poetry, subtle verve, dreamy nostalgia, and serene visuals. This movie qualifies. No action. No slam, bang, pow. This movie instead focuses on the quiet aching that comes with unrequited love, haughty isolationism, passive acceptance and submission. The war, facism, the holocaust, all are covered to a degree without immersing themselves too deeply for the viewer to feel trapped. *sigh*

All in all, this movie is very quiet. I have watched this movie dozens of times, and I have fallen asleep during this movie almost as many times as I watched it. In fact, this is a great cure for insomnia. Now that is not my way of saying it is boring and dead. It is my way of saying this movie is so quiet it will send you dreamily to sleep. *sigh*

DVD Review: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
Summary: 5 Stars

Vittorio de Sica's gorgeous, elegiac film is a solemn meditation on loss of innocence set during one of the most turbulent eras in world history. The Finzi-Continis believe their privilege will protect them from fascist oppression, but their willed isolation and passivity only makes their eventual downfall that much more tragic. Certain images--Giorgio and Micol's ill-fated romantic tryst in a buggy, the slow-motion halcyon portraits of each family member that closes the film--stick with you. A poetic, lyrical masterwork by the great Neorealist director.

Description of The Garden of the Finzi Continis

Set in northern Italy's Ferrara community at the outbreak of World War II, this classic film by Vittorio De Sica concerns an old, aristocratic Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, who maintain their isolated, idyllic ways within the stone walls of their lush estate while Mussolini imprisons Jews outside. The story's central figure, young Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), is a middle-class Jew who has always found perfect sanctuary within the Finzi-Continis' walls and who is in love with his childhood friend from that family, Micol (Dominique Sanda). Micol, however, is sexually restless and fit to burst for want of experiences impossible under government oppression. As Giorgio suffers his estrangement from her, De Sica traces the disintegration of a lost and beautiful way of life, slowly turning his focus from the privileged refuge of tennis courts and private libraries to police barriers and rooms where Jews await transport to concentration camps. This powerful work of memory tragically captures a loss of innocence on both the most personal and historical stages. --Tom Keogh

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