The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Moving portrait of the Jewish upper class in Fascist Italy. It is ominous and tragic to watch the young adults learn about life and love, making decisions about their education and future, while they and their parents go on business as usual, largely ignoring the increasingly restrictive ‘racial laws.’ They seem to have no idea what is coming, as prepared and wise as they may seem to be. The viewer knows all too well. The ending is a sorrowful elegy to lost innocence, a lost way of life, an entire lost generation.