THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI- CONTINI

Italy, 1971, 90 minutes, Colour.
Dominique Sanda, Lino Capolicchio, Helmut Berger, Romolo Valli, Fabio Testa.
Directed by Vittorio de Sica.

The Garden of the Finzi- Contini marks the return to critical success of Vittorio de Sica as director. Praised for his wonderful films of neo-realism after World War II - Bicycle Thieves, Shoeshine, Umberto D - he was considered as having sold out to commercialism in the films he made in the 60's.

The Garden is a dignified film, beautiful to look at, the autumn tints of a dying world, Ferrara 1938-43, and the Jews persecuted by Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws. With very little visual violence, the film moves its audience by immersing us in the world of its people, in ordinary situations, in the emotionally charged situations of the principal characters. We cannot help being involved in their story, and, ultimately in their suffering.

Lino Capolicchio is an effective hero and Dominique Sanda (also seen in Bertollucci's The Conformist) offers a complex performance as Micol.

A beautiful film of human relationships, human dignity and suffering.

1. What did the Garden of the Finzi-Contini's stand for ~ its old-world elegance, a ghetto, a refuge, a target of hatred?

2. Was the style of the film in harmony with the theme - the pastel colours, the slow-moving grandeur, the musical score? How?

3. How did the credit sequences - autumn leaves and tints, and the opening -the gates, the group of young people playing tennis, set an atmosphere for our emotional responses to the fate of the Italian Jews?

4. What kind of people were the Finzi- Contini's? Why their isolation, their cultivated behaviour and interests? Why did Giorgio1s father say they welcomed the anti-Semitic laws to make their home a ghetto?

5. How were the situations of the times communicated - late 1930's, Ferrara, Italy, Mussolini, the use of costumes, records, cinema shows and newsreels? Were these effective?

6. Who was the central character of the film, Giorgio or Micol? Why?

7. Did you understand Micol? How did she fit into the world of the Finzi-Contini? Did she want to escape it? Her love for Filberto? Her degree work on Emily Dickenson? A Jewess? Preferring the isolation of the house, her family, the dog?

8. Did you understand Giorgio? His love for Micol? Its overpowering hold on him? His study? A Jew - against his father and his flirting with the Fascists?

9. Did the flashbacks help in your understanding of Micol and Giorgio? The style of their lives - at school, synagogue, the back fence of the garden, love at a distance? How well were the flashbacks blended into the film?

10. Why did Micol not love Giorgio? Had she encouraged him? What effect did this have on him?

11. How strongly did Giorgio feel about Micol's affair with Sruno? How was this communicated by the film?

12. How did the film portray the plight of the Jews - the Finzi- Contini family - library, gardens, Passover, etc? Giorgio's family - Passover singing, sending Ernesto to Grenoble, anonymous phone calls? the young group of people, expulsion from tennis clubs, mixed marriage forbidden, friendships broken by arrests? - such sequences as the disturbance at the cinema, the warning of the fair attendant? The character of Alberto and his illness? His love for Micol? Friendship with Giorgio? The impact of the death and funeral in the film?

13. The impact of the arrest of the Finzi- Contini, their quiet dignity and sadness, leaving the house and servants, the memories? The line-up, the separations? How did the message of racial tolerance come through these sequences?

14. The sad inevitability and helplessness of the ending?

15. What were the major features of the experience of this film? Its insights into human nature and the world?