|)E/-\T|-| !N \/EN!CE 3

Luchino Visconti's interpretation of Thomas Mann's novella. Dirk Bogarde plays the ageing composer who reassesses his life when his eyes alight on a beautiful teenage boy
Based on German writer Thomas Mann's renowned 1912 novella, Luchino Visconti's film is a stately, majestic work starring a 50-year-old Dirk Bogarde as German composer Gustav Von Aschenbach (a character some suppose to be based on Gustav Mahler, whose music provides the film's score).

The film begins, just prior to World War One, with the imperious Von Aschenbach arriving in Venice, where he has come to convalesce. Soon he's ensconced on a second floor of the grand Hotel Des Bains - from where he can survey the Lido. A man obsessed with beauty, Von Aschenbach's gaze (represented by the smoothly prowling camera) soon finds Tadzio (Andresen), the pubescent son of a wealthy Polish family. The boy is angelic-looking, all blond locks and fine complexion, but he also has a pubescent confidence and soon, troublingly, returns the composer's looks.

Despite the increasingly oppressive, humid atmosphere in the city (which, it transpires, is succumbing to a cholera epidemic), Von Aschenbach's obsession prevents him from leaving. But what are his feelings about the boy? There's undeniably an erotic dimension. Flashbacks in the film introduce his companion, Alfred (Burns). Despite other flashbacks revealing Von Aschenbach visiting a female prostitute, and also having a wife and daughter, his homosexuality is inferred. Alfred may be a lover, but most of all he's a foil - the two men argue vehemently about art and beauty. Although these wordy scenes are the least successful in an otherwise understated movie, they are essential, revealing Von Aschenbach's strict morality and dedication to the abstract concept of beauty. "Reality only distracts and degrades us," he proclaims. Alfred desperately tries to convince him to shake off his code and accept a more sensual attitude to life ("Art... is ambiguity made a science").

As the film progresses it becomes clear Von Aschenbach is not simply convalescing, he's dying - but he's accepting the sensual; he's prepared to face the fug and danger of cholera to be near Tadzio, who incarnates both the life he is losing and the perfect beauty he has long philosophised about. His changed attitude is a sort of salvation, but it's at the expense of his rectitude. The sickly composer visits a barber, who claims to be able "restore" him with hair dye and makeup - the result is a hideous, painted man, a corrupted caricature of life. It's simultaneously a release for a man who has spent a lifetime restricting himself and a punitive, pathetic end

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• FILM

[JaliscoDeOjosHazel]

Bogarde's eyes speak for themselves... he doesn't need say a word... :)