Rent The Garden of the Finzi Contini (1970)

A tale of love and fate in Fascist Italy, in the 1930s and 1940s - The Garden of the Finzi Contini review by Philip in Paradiso

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, a group of young friends get together for afternoons of tennis and flirting. Some of them are Italian Jews: Fascism is imposing increasing restrictions on their lives. The film ends in 1943, when the situation of Italian Jews had deteriorated immensely and the destruction of the Jewish community loomed very large.

It is the tale of 2 families -- one of them reasonably well-off, and the other very rich. The garden in the title belongs to the house of the immensely rich family, the Finzi Continis. It is also a love story, which is set against the tragic backdrop of the war and the Fascist regime in Italy. But, for much of the film, the love story in question, in all its complexities, twists and turns, is actually centre-stage, as if it mattered more than the bigger picture.

The film is beautiful and melancholy. There is no doubt that it is a very good film and 'a classic'. However, I also found the action quite slow and the plot somewhat predictable: in actual fact, not a lot happens in the course of the 90 mins that the film lasts. So, I would recommend it, but not without some slight reservations.

Hard Times in pre war Italy. - The Garden of the Finzi Contini review by Cato

A moving story of unrequited love, in which two rich Jewish families find themselves on the brink of very hard times in Mussolini's Italy. A rather beautiful film in which love seems fated from the very beginning. I watched it twice.

Lush cinematography in a tale of doomed aristocratic Jewish family - The Garden of the Finzi Contini review by JO

Beautifully shot drama with a dreamy, ethereal quality depicting the insular world in which the aristocratic Finzi Cortinis lived while the world outside their paradisal garden became engulfed in Fascism. The film focuses on two Jewish families in Ferrara, Italy during the years 1938-43: one is affluent and aristocratic, the other of more humble origins.

Although the handsome Giorgio loves Micol, a Finzi Cortini, his love is unrequited due to the social class divide. When racial laws are instigated, Giorgio's family and most Jews lose their rights; however, the Finzi Cortinis ignore the political situation, figuring that they are secure because of their wealth and social prominence. De Sica makes the point that the Finzi Cortinis, like all land owning Italian Jews of the time, defined themselves more by social rank than by their religion. But in the end, all Jews (Giorgio's and Micol's family) were doomed.

Film is deliberately slow paced and the early scenes of the Finzi Cortinis garden party are ravishing in dreamy soft focus photography. The romantic early scenes are starkly contrasted by the deportation scenes towards the film's ending. Deservedly winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for that year.