Zurlini next best work to his monumental "The Desert of the Tartars" made 14 years later. "Family Diary" shared the Golden Lion at Venice with Tarkovsky's early work "Ivan's childhood" (with Konchalovsky as the uncredired co-scriptwriter) for the best film. Both Mastroianni and Perrin give creditable performances as do Guiseppe Rotunno as its cinematographer. Like Satyajit Ray, Zurlini's cinema is mostly a world of adapting existing tales for the screen, which both did with aplomb. This film never bothers to explain why Mastroianni's character Enrico never has a female friend or who his biological father was. Why is a butler of a rich family taking care of Lorenzo as a foster dad? Zurlini's cinema rarely dwells on such crucial details but excells excels in capturing inner turmoils and cinematographic wonders (Rotunno in this work and Luciano Tavoli in "The Desert of the Tartars"). Zurlini is a master of capturing beauty in bleak tales on screen. Cineastes will see parallels in the tale of this film with Bergman's "Cries and Whispers." Zurlini re-utilized Perrin in "The Desert of the Tartars" some 14 years later.