Monthly Archives: September 2020

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il giardino del Finzi-Contini)
Directed by Vittorio de Sica
Written by Ugo Pirro and Vittorio Bonicelli from a novel by Giorgio Bassani
1970/Italy
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Giorgio’s Father: In life, in order to understand, to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, when there’s still time left to recover and live again.

A beautiful, sad film about being young at the end of an era.

The setting is Ferrara, Italy in the 1930’s.  The wealthy Jewish Finzi-Contini family live on a grand estate.  Their children are all beautiful and athletic.  An invitation to the house or tennis court is esteemed a great honor.  Middle-class Giorgio (Lino Cappolicchio) is trying his damndest to woo Micol Finzi-Contini (Dominique Sanda).

During the long lazy afternoons we spend with the family we hear rumblings as the rights of Jews are gradually stripped away.  Can love triumph over politics?  With Helmut Berger as Alberto Finzi-Contini.

I didn’t find this a powerful film but it is a very beautiful one.  A lush dream-like atmosphere envelopes the elegant world of the Finzi-Continis making it even more tragic when reality hits.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.  It was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Performance
Directed by Donald Cammel and Nicholas Roeg
Written by Donald Cammel
UK/1970
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Turner: I’ll tell you this: the only performance that makes it, that really makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness. Right? Am I right? You with me?

Take heaping helpings of bloody violence, couple these with psychedelic weirdness and you get a movie I just don’t like.

Psychopath Chas (James Fox) enjoys his work as hit man/enforcer for the mob. He always thinks up the most spectacular and terrifying ways of collecting debts.  One day he slips up and kills a couple of guys who were sent my the management to kill him.  He is now on the run for his life.

His travels cause him to more or less force his way into the flat of artist Turner (Mick Jagger) and his two girlfriends.  This is where the sex, drugs and rock and roll come in. After a large dose of psychodelic mushrooms Chas is in Turner’s hands.  Their personalities and appearances finally merge.  I am not clear why,

After the gratuitous gore of the first part of the movie, I more or less didn’t care what happened in the second part.  As far as I am concerned it was completely missable.

I will say James Fox gave it his all in a performance well outside his usual range.

Wanda
Directed by Barbara Loden
Written by Barbara Loden
1970/US
IMDb page
First viewing, Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Norman Dennis: If you don’t want anything you won’t have anything, and if you don’t have anything, you’re as good as dead.

Barbara Loden’s rambling story about a woman at loose ends is good but is it unmissable?

The setting is somewhere in the rust belt.  Wanda (Loden) works in a clothing factory,  She is not fast enough to be retained.  Her ex-husband is seeking custody of the children.  She shows up late at court wearing curlers and admits the kids would be better off without her. She then tries to eke out an existence by picking up men at bars.  Finally, she picks up the wrong guy, Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins)

Norman is super controlling and demeaning.  However, he seems to need a companion and takes her on a long road trip.  Toward the end, Norman informs Wanda that they are going to rob a bank.  She does not want to go along but doesn’t seem to realize she has a choice.

This is good as a character study of the lot of an uneducated woman with low self-esteem in the late 60’s early 70’s.  Loden is very good as the title character.  The production has a grimy, seedy feel throughout.  I’m not sorry I saw it but don’t consider it a must-see either.

Print was much better in the version I watched