The Garden of the Finzi-Continis [Il giardino dei Finzi Contini] ***** (1970, Dominique Sanda, Lino Capolicchio, Helmut Berger, Fabio Testi, Romolo Valli) – Classic Movie Review 7,710

The 1970 Oscar-winning Italian drama film The Garden of Finzi-Continis (Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini) is a marvellous late return to form for director Vittorio De Sica, who revisits the period of his youth to reveal his feelings about Mussolini’s Italy and the time when World War Two broke out.

The gorgeously filmed, delicately acted, beautifully written film centres on the rich Jewish upper-crust family of the title living in 1938 in Ferrara, northern Italy, who turn a blind eye to the threat of the holocaust as the adult children gather friends for tennis and parties, not running from the Germans and thinking that they will be okay behind their lovely garden’s high walls.

This almost unbearably moving, thought-provoking and deservedly greatly admired film won the 1972 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin Film Festival in 1971. An inspired De Sica handles it with an exquisite delicate touch.

Dominique Sanda scores strongly as the haughty Finzi-Contini daughter Micòl, who has long loved poorer Jewish boy Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio, but has an affair with rabid communist Giampiero Malnate (Fabio Testi in his breakthrough role). Helmut Berger and Romolo Valli also star in important leading roles as Alberto and as Giorgio’s Father.

Also in the cast are Camillo Cesarei as Micol’s Father, Inna Alexeievna [Inna Alexeieff] as Micol’s Grandmother, Katina Morisani as Micol’s Mother, Raffaele Curi as Ernesto, Camilla Angelini-Rota, Katina Viglietti, Barbara Pilavin as Giorgio’s Mother, Michael Berger, Ettore Geri, Gianpaolo Duregon, Marcella Gentile, Cinzia Bruno and Alessandro D’Alatie.

It is based on the 1962 semi-autobiographical novel by Italian Jewish author Giorgio Bassani, one of the scenarists, who later rejected the film.

Bassani worked on the dialogue and screenplay, but open conflict followed disagreements and misunderstandings with De Sica. Bassani’s name as script-writer was removed from the credits as he asked. The opening credits say the film was freely derived from the novel by Giorgio Bassani.

Villa Ada near Rome was used for the garden, while the Finzi-Contini villa is the Litta Bolognini villa in Vedano al Lambro.

The Garden of Finzi-Continis (Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini), is directed by Vittorio De Sica, runs 103 minutes or 94 minutes, is made by Documento Film and CCC Filmkunst, distributed by Titanus (Italy) and MGM-EMI (UK), is written by Vittorio Bonicelli, Ugo Pirro, Cesare Zavattini (uncredited), Tullio Pinelli (uncredited), Valerio Zurlini (uncredited), Franco Brusati (uncredited), Giorgio Bassani (uncredited), Alain Katz (uncredited) and Vittorio De Sica (uncredited), based on the novel by Giorgio Bassani, is shot in Eastmancolor by Ennio Guarnieri, is produced by Arthur Cohn and Gianni Hecht Lucari, and is scored by Manuel De Sica with Bill Conti (uncredited).

The digitally restored version was released in spring 2015.

De Sica is the maker of Bicycle Thieves (1948), Umberto D (1952) and Miracle in Milan (1951).

Helmut Berger died on 18 May 2023, at the age of 78.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,710

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