Much like Louis Malle's similarly themed film from 1987 AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTS, Vittorio daSica's THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI's is a meditative piece on the relatively safe haven of a group of people -- in this case, an entire family of wealthy Jews who enjoy a life of privilege as the horrors of World War II and anti-Semitism rages on. The Finzi-Contini's, however, believe that their position of wealth and their very home will shield them from being touched, and they move on, oblivious to the world outside, in a frozen period of time and space that seems, for a moment, to spare them, until it becomes rather clear that the walls that so protected them are beginning to crumble and that they are headed towards an inevitable train wreck which will destroy all that they know. As their rights and the rights of the Jewish people are stripped away from them, they find themselves suddenly awake into a reality they cannot understand, but must move into. DaSica's movie is a slow-moving lyrical poem which differs from his earlier Neo-Realist work, and captures in its running time this illusionary reality as if all this were a dream that the Finzi-Continis were having. The filtered lens only maximizes the almost enchanted beauty that pours through from the screen and onto the viewers' eyes; indeed, this is nostalgia for a time gone by, a trip down memory lane and a subtle incursion into a denouncement of the horrors of war which never rears its ugly head but whose presence ultimately swallows a family, whole.