{"id":18674,"date":"2022-08-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18674"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:12:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:12:10","slug":"classic-corner-the-garden-of-the-finzi-continis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/classic-corner-the-garden-of-the-finzi-continis\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Corner: The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Finzi-Contini family property is hidden behind towering stone walls, tucked away in a far corner of the city of Ferrara, an otherwise bustling hub of bicycles and businesses in Italy\u2019s northeastern province of Emilia Romagna. Outside, it\u2019s 1938 and the world is on the verge of cataclysm. But inside the garden all is verdant and serene. For generations, this is where the wealthy have lounged for languorous sunny afternoons of sport and leisure. Lately, the Finzi-Continis\u2019 youngest daughter Mic\u00f2l (Dominque Sanda) has begun bringing friends over for tennis, as they\u2019ve suddenly found themselves unwelcome at Ferrara\u2019s country clubs. Her friends, like Mic\u00f2l and the rest of the Finzi-Continis, are Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on Giorgio Bassani\u2019s semi-autobiographical 1962 novel of the same name, Vittorio De Sica\u2019s 1970 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis<\/em> spends five years in Ferrara following the fortunes of two families. The film begins with gauzy, upward-looking glimpses of sun-dappled leaves and branches that drift in and out of focus, as if you\u2019re awakening from an afternoon nap under the trees. It ends in the way we all knew was inevitable, with that beautifully maintained tennis court shrouded in a gray fog of war. To young Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), a middle-class Jew who since childhood has been longing for his classmate Mic\u00f2l from afar, an invitation to the Finzi-Contini\u2019s palatial estate is a chance to visit Eden. It\u2019s an idle paradise of denial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surely things won\u2019t get much worse, these people insist, certain that their money and status can insulate them from what\u2019s coming. Giorgio\u2019s father (Romolo Valli) has a prominent position in the Fascist party, which for the time being has granted him exception to the draconian new restrictions placed upon Jews in Italy. Rules only apply to the poor and less-connected. And besides, even if his son\u2019s presence is no longer tolerated at the public library, the boy can always study at the Finzi-Continis\u2019, who have one of their own that\u2019s more impressive than any municipal building. These characters look upon Mussolini\u2019s edicts as temporary inconveniences. After all, it\u2019s not like this is Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One cannot help but think of that old adage about the frog in the pot, with the Finzi-Continis and friends slow to notice how the simmering temperature around them as it begins to boil. They\u2019re more fixated on their personal problems anyway, especially Giorgio\u2019s unrequited love for Mic\u00f2l, for whom he has yearned since his schoolboy days spent trying to get a glimpse over those walls. But she\u2019s impossible to get a read on, played by Sanda (who would go on to beguile audiences in Bertolucci\u2019s The Conformist<\/em> and 1900<\/em>) as part sex object, part Sphinx. She has a way of seducing men and then shutting herself down, as if the family garden weren\u2019t the only thing that\u2019s walled off from the world. She tells Giorgio she\u2019s incapable of loving him, that it would be like kissing a brother. His ardor is undeterred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Malnate (Fabio Teste) is an outsider in the group, a Gentile and a communist who finds the bourgeoisie a little boring, if we\u2019re being honest. Some friends and family members figure he\u2019d be a good match for Mic\u00f2l, but he\u2019s got her all figured out, and besides, mixed marriages are already on their way to becoming illegal in Italy. Malnate actually seems more interested in her sickly brother Alberto, and at times it\u2019s tough to tell if their frisky, pansexual chemistry is intentional in De Sica\u2019s script or if it\u2019s just because Alberto is played by Helmut Berger. Yet all these shallow attractions and entanglements will soon seem both trivial and tragic when at last intruded upon by the world raging beyond these garden walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1940s De Sica had all but invented the Italian neorealist movement with multiple masterpieces like Shoeshine<\/em>, Bicycle Thieves<\/em> and Umberto D<\/em>. By the \u201860s he\u2019d fallen out of favor with critics, taking undistinguished work to cover his gambling debts and directing silly Sophia Loren comedies. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis<\/em> was hailed as a return to form for the filmmaker by nearly everyone except Giorgio Bassani, who was so incensed by changes to his novel that he demanded that his name be removed from the credits. De Sica died of lung cancer in 1974, two years after Finzi-Continis<\/em> won him his fourth Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains an achingly beautiful cautionary tale about the blindness of privilege, a movie rich with longing and loss. De Sica ditched the novel\u2019s narration, wisely understanding that the opening title card \u201cFerrara, 1938-1943\u201d already tells us all we need to know. He allows history to cast a ghostly pallor over the film\u2019s frivolity, and it\u2019s impossible to watch The Garden of the Finzi-Continis<\/em> in today\u2019s political climate without feeling a chill every time one of the characters shrugs off another sign of encroaching authoritarianism, blithely believing such horrors couldn\u2019t possibly happen so close to home.\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” is streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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