The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

A stunner. Vittorio De Sica's late career masterpiece exposes the hopeless plight a lot of Italian Jews faced as the lunatic Mussolini got further and further into bed with Hitler during WWII. The Finzi-Continis, a well-to-do family of intellectuals fail to realize the rising tide of anti-semitism around them as their vast estate becomes more and more a sanctuary for their equally blind friends. Unrequited love and missed chances at romance are dwarfed in importance as the Nazis move in. This is a very unsettling movie as you're well aware of what is going to happen to these people. De Sica (and five or six uncredited scriptwriters) creates a real sense of dread and the film is populated with an excellent cast. Lino Capolicchio is the standout, hopelessly in love with Finzi-Contini débutante Dominique Sanda. As Sanda's infirm brother, Helmut Berger personifies an entire race of people about to be systematically eliminated. Fabio Testi and Romolo Valli (excellent as Capolicchio's grotesquely optimistic father) are in it too.

No doubt this film is prettily photographed. And everyone in it is very pretty too, with their gleaming tennis whites and Sunday best dresses. For most of the movie we observe the characters dreamily cycling into one scene in a bit of this "garden" (in reality an amorphous amalgam of four private estates) and languorously cycling out, quite untroubled by bellicose drum rolls sounding off in other bits of Europe just to the north. As for clearly identifying the chief protagonists and following their fortunes, the poor viewer has a hard time trying to tell these lovely people apart one from the other. In fact, for me the only true moments of any dramatic force in the film occurs in the last scene in the dark toned schoolroom, leagues away from the dazzling sun. Out of the whole film, it is only here that tense emotions truly grip the audience with any convincing force. But this is too little, too late. De Sica has wasted too much filmic time presenting us with bloodless ciphers in his candy floss world for us to give a tinker's cuss for these folks and their final dire outcome.

One of the most celebrated foreign films in history, "The Garden of the Finzi-Contini" has been re-released so that people who missed it in 1971 can see the film restored as it was originally meant to be viewed -- then ask themselves WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT!!!!!This film recounts the fall of a Jewish family during Mussolini's rise in Italy during World War II. The story follows Giorgio as he tries to surf outside his social class and win over the cute but cold-as-ice Micol. He fails, along with the film.This is NOT a great film. Like many period pieces, it's a stately bore. The plot and character development take forever to build any steam. Just when you begin to care a little about the characters -- the movie ends. Or, more accurately, just stops, dead in in tracks, not a single plotline resolved. Characters just disappear along the way, randomly, with no dramatic impact. It's photography was way too detached from it's subject matter until it's too late. In the end, too frustrating to be entertaining and too boring to be thought-provoking.THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS holds its audience at arm's length. As a result, Giorgio's romantic plight, which occupies considerable screen time, has a limited emotional impact. Since we never really get close to him, aspects of the movie are less compelling than they might otherwise have been. The film's often-detached perspective allows us to focus more clearly on presentation and issues, but at the expense of caring about the characters.DeSica directed many masterpieces but this film does not qualify as a masterpiece nor does it stand the test of time.

I can not believe that Vittorio De Sica did this film. What was he thinking? This film does not stand the test of time. The pacing is very SLOW; the plot does not make sense; the Cinematography was terrible - most of the shots are out of focus for "effect". I promise you, after 20 minutes you will fall asleep or get mad at yourself for watching this film.