The Gold Rimmed Glasses

In Ferrara in 1938, Athos Fadigati is a respected doctor who has spent years hiding the fact that he is homosexual. The first time he stops concealing his interest in a young man, the way the city looks at him changes overnight. In the same year Italy passes its racial laws, and a Jewish student and his family are gradually shut out too. The two exclusions see each other, but neither can save the other. Giuliano Montaldo, adapting Giorgio Bassani's novel, tells fascism not through mass rallies but through an everyday coldness: neighbours who stop saying hello, signs taken down from shops, tables you are no longer invited to. Philippe Noiret plays the doctor and Rupert Everett the student. The film competed at Venice in 1987 and took the costume and production design prizes, and Ennio Morricone won a David di Donatello for the score.