The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

Master storyteller Vittorio de Sica sets his last great film, THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS in the small Italian town of Ferrara during World War II. The Finzi-Continis, a wealthy Jewish family, live in a castle surrounded by a beautiful garden. While the garden creates the family's physical barrier to the outside world, an elaborate series of psychological barriers allow the family to avoid thinking about the fascists who rule the country beyond their gates. But like all Italian Jews, the Finzi-Continis cannot escape the effects of the war raging around them, and the times eventually catch up to them. A work of fine detail and striking beauty, de Sica's film is inarguably one of the masterpieces of world cinema.