Movies - The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

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Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) is a historical novel by Giorgio Bassani that chronicles the relationships between the narrator and the children of the Finzi-Contini family from the rise of Mussolini until the start of World War II. Vittorio De Sica turned the book into a film in 1970, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1971.

Background

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is considered the best of the series of novels that Bassani produced about the lives of Italian Jews in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Although the novel focuses on the relationships between the major characters, the shadow of creeping fascism, especially the racial laws that restricted Jews' participation in Italian society, looms over all the novel's events.

Plot

The novel opens with a brief prologue set in 1957 in which the narrator, an Italian Jew, describes a visit to the Ferrara cemetery where the Finzi-Contini family mausoleum stands, empty in all but two slots: a young child, Guido, who died of illness before the narrator was born; and Alberto, the son of the Finzi-Continis and a friend of the narrator's, who died of cancer shortly before the mass deportation that sent the remainder of the family to a concentration camp in Germany. At this point, the narrator reveals that none of the Finzi-Continis survived.

The first part of the book covers the narrator's childhood experiences, describing the various social circles of the local Jewish population and the mystery around the Finzi-Contini children, Alberto and Micól, who were schooled separately from the other Jewish children and who only appeared at the main school for the annual exams. The narrator fails his math test in this particular year, the first time he has failed any of the annual exams required for promotion, and he takes off on his bike out of fear of his father's reaction. He ends up outside the walls of the Finzi-Continis' mansion, where he has a conversation with Micól, the Finzi-Continis' pretty daughter. The narrator then makes his first trip inside the walls of the property.

The next two parts of the book cover the years when the children are all in or just out of college. The racial laws have restricted their ability to socialize with the Ferrarese Christians, and so the narrator, Alberto, Micól, and several other Jewish teenagers form an informal tennis club of their own, playing several times a week at the court in the Finzi-Continis' garden. During these visits, the narrator and Micól begin a tentative affair, but Micól's attitude towards the narrator varies and the affair slowly peters out.

The final section of the book covers the slow fading of the narrator's involvement in the tennis club, his futile attempts to restart the romance with Micól, and his eventual departure from Ferrara.

Film adaptation

De Sica's 1971 film version of Il giardino dei Finzi-Continis starred Lino Capolicchio as Giorgio (the narrator). It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Screenplay (based on material from another medium). It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival.

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