Other Titles • Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) • Der Garten der Finzi Contini (1971)
Synopses for Giardino dei Finzi-Contini, Il (1970)
1.
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
(15 votes)
2.
Vittorio De Sica's beautifully photographed masterpiece, THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS, is a return to the fine dramas (SHOESHINE, THE BICYCLE THIEF) of his early days as a director. Based on the autobiographical novel by Giorgio Bassani, the film covers the lives of several Jewish characters from the onset of Mussolini's anti-Semitic edicts in 1938 to the arrest and deportation of all of the Italian Jews in 1943. The lead character, Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), is a middle-class student invited by the fabulously wealthy Finzi-Continis to research his thesis in the family's private library. While pursuing his studies, Giorgio falls in love with the family's beautiful daughter, Micol (Dominique Sanda), who rebuffs his advances. Meanwhile, Mussolini is slowly dissolving the rights of all Italian Jews, though the Finzi-Contini family appears unable to accept this fact, let alone deal with its consequences. Viewed from the perfect vision of hindsight, the GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS is more than just a story of unrequited love set in turbulent times--it is a tragic, cautionary account of how the most elevated and aristocratic members of a society can ignore their approaching destruction.
(15 votes)
3.
Amid the ravages of WWII, the Finzi-Continis, a cultured Jewish family languished in aristocratic splendor on their Eden-like state in Ferrara, Italy. As the political atmosphere becomes increasingly hostile to its Jewish citizens, the handsome and carefree Finzi-Continis children, Micol (Dominique Sandra) and Alberto (Helmut Berger), turn their well appointed home into a refuge for their young friends. In an atmosphere of emotional instability, they play out a series of heartbreaking romantic rituals which spiral into tragedy as Fascism gradually descends upon their world.
(15 votes)
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