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Death in VeniceRating:
Release Date: 17 February, 2004 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: |
Death in Venice Reviews
Just wait a year
I won't give away plot or character... you can get this info from other reviewers. I will tell you something else.
I've seen this film once, a year ago. I hated it then. (Maybe my hetero-ness got in the way and I momentarily forgot that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... ) But from time to time images from the film crop into my head. They leave... eventually they come back. They always come back.
How many works of art can say THAT?
This is a haunting film, a tragic one. You will be touched... although maybe not right away. Give it a chance and it will be like one of those dreams you had twenty years ago and every now and then an image from that dream will pop into your head.
I've been to Venice. The city is like no other. And this film, perhaps, also, ... like no other.
An exquisite film
Make no mistake - Many would find this film difficult to watch; impossible to watch right through for most. As an friend said once, watching 'Death In Venice' is to be exquisitely bored.
Most people today, especially those younger people born after 1980 and the age of "MTV" would think the idea of spending 2 hours watching an old, closted gay guy stalking a pretty young boy all over Venice ridiculous, even insane.
I remember watching this film when I was in my mid-20's and hating it. But now that I am in my mid-40's, I know what its all about, and feel the tragedy of von Aschenbach. At last I understand it, and I find it a masterpiece.
Von Aschenbach is getting old, and feels old. He is conservative to the point of being pathetic. While he watches the beautiful Tadzio, desiring him, it is the desire to be young and free that he also desires, not just the love of and desire for beauty. To be able to covort in the ocean and roll around in the mud in the hugging grasp of a loved friend is probably what von Aschenbach wants to do. But society and convention demand that he sits in a deck chair on the beach eating strawberries. When we watch this film, the stifling boredom of high society jumps out of the screen at us. Von Aschenbach desparetly wants to escape this suffocating society, but can't. His only escape is by proxy; through watching the beautiful boy, Tadzio.
But this is not all. Tadzio is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and as von Aschenbach has striven for beauty all his life, he becomes obsessed by Tadzio. He becomes a tragic, old queen stalking a beautiful 14 year old boy. Finally this tragic episode in his life comes to a conclusion when he is talked into having a 'makeover' by a barber, having his grey hair painted over with black paint, his face covered in white make-up, mascara applyed to his eyes and red lipstick put on. As he leaves the barber shop with a new confidence that he looks 20 years younger, we can see he looks pathetic - so pathetic it brings tears to the eyes. We cring in horror as we watch the lipstick being applyed to his lips; we shout out loud "NO!!" as he walks out into the street wearing make-up that gives him the appearance of a tragic old clown.
Yes folks, this is one of the saddest films ever. Sad because as we get older, we can identify with von Aschenbach and his desire to be young, and his desire for young beauty. We feel his pain as he desires that young beauty that we know he can't have. All this happening in the most beautiful city in the world, looking absolutely exquisite.
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