Reviews on movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (4)

In 1970, Finzi Contini’s Garden made a lot of noise. The film won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, won BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards, as well as a prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
This is a picture directed at the end of life by the famous founder of Italian neorealism Vittorio De Sica ("Bike Thieves", "Umberto D."). It is based on the novel of the same name by Giorgio Bassani and occupies a special place among other films not so much due to the visual component and the love story of the heroes put in the center of the narrative, as a global and eternal theme that is absolutely not accepted to cover.
The Finzi Contini Garden immerses viewers in the world of Italy from 1938 to 1943. The country has already established strict rules against Jews, fascism is gaining momentum, Benito Mussolini is in power, and a Nazi regime has been established in neighboring Germany. Gradually, the Jews are getting used to new and new restrictions. But the main characters of the film close their eyes. They are rich and influential, they have connections in the party and most prohibitions they can painlessly circumvent.
Are Jews banned from university? It's okay, they go abroad and defend themselves there. Were they expelled from the public library? No problem, the huge estate of the aristocrats Finzi Contini has its own library - they will go there. Are Jews banned from tennis clubs? They will gather in the beautiful garden of Finzi Contini and continue to play there. They were forbidden to have servants? Well, prohibitions are designed to break them. . .

Adaptation and the conviction that money and powerful connections will always protect them from the troubles that haunt ordinary Jews – this was the basis of the life of the rich Jews living in Italy at that time.
Vittorio De Sica does not reproach them with inaction and a persistent desire not to see what is happening around them. He only shows with sadness and sadness what this led to, and with his film The Garden of Finzi Contini, as it were, calls: “Please don’t forget this lesson.” Do not be tempted by faith in the inviolability of your personal well-being, do not fence yourself off from the world with a high fence, you will still remain part of the environment.

Finzi Contini Garden is a very powerful film. She pretends to be an ordinary story about love affairs and pushes all the most important things into the background. But the more it hits the heroes and spectators in the face when it abruptly ends the narrative with footage of the expulsion of the rich from their luxurious estate and throws them into a helpless and faceless bunch of Jews deprived of absolutely all rights and freedoms.
Vittorio De Sica has always been a master of transferring real life to cinematic film without embellishment. The Garden of Finzi-Contini was also filmed as part of Italian neorealism. But although this film is realistically shot and based on the real past, watching it makes you feel like you are watching some fantastic dystopia. It's a story about a terrible future that actually happened in the past.

Amazing Ferrara, but not an amazing time for the story. In the late 1930s, Mussolini is increasingly screwing up Jewish screws, and the country itself is getting closer to a big war and a very difficult end. Meanwhile, here in Ferrara idle lives a young Jewish aristocrat Micol, adoring in her family garden Finzi-Contini to gather friends, play tennis and other lures. Another young Jew from the not so rich Giorgio family is in love with Micol, who periodically makes timid attempts to get a girl. But the girl likes to play with feelings, and meanwhile, the local fascists intend to play with their lives. And the status of even the richest Jews may not save them.

Overall, not bad. Already old Vittorio De Sica almost the last time flashed brightly in his very productive career, filming an almost autobiographical novel by Giorgio Bassani about the not simple fate of the Jews of old Ferrara. The topic of various manifestations of the Holocaust in Jewish Hollywood is always trendy, and therefore it is not surprising that this tape eventually won the Oscar in 1972 as the best foreign language film. But there is one "but." It would be fairer to send another anti-fascist film by Bernardo Bertolucci, The Conformist, in the 72nd from Italy. De Sica made just a good film, and Bertolucci – a masterpiece.
But closer to "just a good movie." De Sica, using quite suitable plot material, as well as pleasantly surprising perfectly saturated camera work, shot a thoughtful and aesthetically cute movie. It was both lyrical and at the same time morally heavy. But what the director lacked was some final acceleration or at least a non-trivial twist in a fairly predictable plot. The same applies to the performers of the main roles, who at first evoke sympathy with their phlegmaticity and infantilism (primarily this applies to the lead actor Lino Cappolicio, who played the insecure guy Giorgio), but then this already generates more irritation. Well, the best in the film was Dominic Sanda, who had already managed to get acquainted with us, who played the role of the aristocrat Micol. Sanda traditionally shows the viewer her small but pretty breasts and also easily plays sexual themes. For the actress, 1970 was an amazing year in her career. In addition to this tape, she managed to shock light up in “First Love” and the already mentioned “Conformist”. And that's 22 years old.
A deep, beautiful, but very slow film (despite only an hour and a half of time), raising the theme of the “elegant” Holocaust. Yes, there have been countries where Jews have been pressed politely, almost with shy reluctance. It was not easy for the victims.

P.S. Our last film with Vittorio De Sica. Very original and director and actor. But most of all, De Sica was at the start of his career as part of neorealism. The film world remembers him primarily as the creator of “Bike Thieves”.
6.5 out of 10

It's a beautiful story, even a sweet one. The atmosphere of waiting. The beginning of the most brutal repression in Europe. And the point of view falls on the intelligentsia. Moreover, it is the circle of people who will be subjected to harassment on the basis of nationality. The sweetness of the film is compensated by strange conversations. One man speaks of the horrors of Dachau, the other prophesies of the beginning of cruel times. Well, in the rest - we show ordinary people who will face a very difficult test. And, of course, they cannot help but seem naive and short-sighted. This is the basis of the film.

And here the most obvious to show life, to compete with aristocratic values and deeply thoughtful to complete the film without showing cruelties. This is the formula that Vittorio de Sica uses. He shows us the uneasy love between a restless young man and an already very practically minded woman. The scene in which a naked Dominic Sanda turns on the light, allowing her counterpart to see Fabio Testi sleeping next to her - in general, it seems the most vivid episode of the film. There are also many empty conversations. And, of course, not without the threshold of hell.

However, despite the harmony of the narrative, pastel tones and a good selection of actors, this film did not seem to me worthy of high marks. The thing is, he didn't seem sincere to me. The topic is not at all simple, it without a doubt automatically causes regret, sympathy, pain for others. And given such a powerful background, it is so easy to overdo it. And, alas, this pragmatism of the creators in this tape is traced. Somewhere they overdo it with criticism of the aristocracy, somewhere with “silent approval” of the terrible regime, somewhere they even put a love line on the forefront, which even the actors themselves did not seem to take seriously. And it turned out in the end - bad, artless. Well, you can not shoot such tapes boring, drawn-out.

In general, I would understand this film in comparison with Bergman’s “Snake Egg”, a film similar in subject, but much more intense, sharp and therefore scary. And this can be done for quite a long time, because, limiting the mention of the scene with Sanda and low rating, it is time to complete this review.
3 out of 10

Among the favorite films include this picture I can not, but the film is not bad.
Despite the declared genre of the “military” of the war itself, we will not see it, but we will see the tragedy of people who happened to live in fascist Italy on the eve of World War II.
The anti-Semitic laws adopted by B. Mussolini in the late 1930s affect Italian Jews in different ways; some are forced to flee their native Ferrara, while others continue to live, indulging their desires and whims.
The garden of Finzi-Contini is a place that brought young people together for a rather fun event - a game of tennis; a place where the heroes spent their last cloudless and joyful days, after which they will have to go through the long and hard years of the war, and some, unfortunately, will not have to see the Peace and enjoy the Victory.
In The Garden, we see two dramatic lines. One of them is the story of unrequited love. Guy Giorgio from a poor family is in love with Micol for 10 years, he aspires not to the garden where you can always have fun; he aspires to the garden where he can see her, where he can be with her, touch her hand, look after her and tell her about his love. She, knowing his feelings, demonstrates her neglect and runs away at night to his friend.
Another tragedy of the film is the naivety, the garden owners, the naivety that will play a cruel joke with the Finzi-Contini family. Wealthy aristocrats believe that anti-Semitic trials and laws against Jews will not affect them. Their children Micol and Alberto still continue to lead a cloudless life, have fun, play tennis and do not think about the impending danger, completely refuse to believe in the possibility of war, which deprives themselves of the last chance for salvation.
In conclusion, of course, I want to mention the actors. Despite the fact that “they don’t even look like Jews”, it was very nice to look at the French beauty Dominique Sanda.
7 out of 10