Garden of the Finzi-Continis aka Il Giardino de Finiz-Contini dir. Vittorio de Sica
The coolness of the film makes it less convincing than de Sica's early masterpiece, The Bicycle Thief. Nevertheless its story of unrequited love in Mussolini's Italy frames a larger array of various Italian Jews. The opulence of their lifestyles sadly causes many of them to misinterpret or feel immune to the burgeoning anti-Semitism of the era. Thus a story is told of a different segment of Europe's Jewish populace than we are used to. Note the presence of a book by Bernadetto Croce, the philosopher and anti-Fascist.