Trama

While recovering in Venice, sickly composer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio.

In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, avant-garde composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Sir Dirk Bogarde) travels to a Venetian seaside resort seeking repose after a period of artistic and personal stress. But he finds no peace there, for he soon develops a troubling attraction to Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), an adolescent on vacation with his family. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty that Aschenbach has long sought and he becomes infatuated. However, the onset of a deadly pestilence threatens them physically and represents the corruption that compromises and threatens all ideals.—Eric Wees <eric_wees@ccmail.chin.doc.ca>

In the early 20th century, Gustav von Aschenbach (Sir Dirk Bogarde), once married with a daughter, is a Munich-based composer of experimental music. Now a frail middle-aged man in ill health, he is advised by his doctor to get complete rest. As such, he is alone at the Grand Hotel, on the Lido in Venice, to convalesce. He and his friend Alfred (Mark Burns) have had many a philosophical discussion about the concept of beauty, not only as it applies to his oft-not-appreciated music, but as it applies to the arts and life in general. Gustav believes that the nature of beauty can dominate one on a scientific level rather than an emotional level. He becomes obsessed with a Polish teenager, Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), who is staying at the hotel with his sisters and mother. Most of Gustav's interactions with Tadzio are furtive yet still intense gazes from afar. As time progresses, Gustav admits to himself that that obsession has turned into love with not a word spoken between them. On an emotional level, he is torn by his feelings, at first trying to escape physically, then doing anything to remain within Tadzio's view. What happens between Gustav and Tadzio could be dictated by issues external to them.—Huggo

Reflecting on his failures, defeated by the cruel vanity of his Quixotic search for beauty, ailing German composer Gustav von Aschenbach takes a convalescent holiday at luxurious, turn-of-the-century Venice Lido, in Luchino Visconti's controversial screen adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella. Teetering on the brink of a physical and mental breakdown, suddenly, disillusioned Gustav crosses paths with beautiful 15-year-old Polish boy Tadzio: the embodiment of the artist's ideals and the unattainable object of his affection. And, as the oppressive scirocco wind brings sickness and plague to Venice, infatuation transforms into obsession, and platonic agony evolves into the haunting passion of unrequited love.—Nick Riganas