Directed by: Luchino Visconti
Starring: Dirk Bogarde and Silvana Mangano
Genre: Drama
IMDB
Some people really love this film. I thought it was terrible. Really, I could barely get through it. To begin with, it’s exceedingly boring. I have no problem with extended periods of time with no dialogue in films, but in order to pull it off effectively you need to 1) give me something visually arresting to grab ahold of, and 2) make what little dialogue there is powerful and meaningful. Death in Venice fails on both counts.
Taken as a meandering trip through the gorgeous canals of Venice, this film has some merit, but as a retelling of Thomas Mann’s fantastic novel, it not only falls flat, but completely misinterprets Mann’s themes. Visconti’s The Leopard is a masterpiece of cinema and one of my favorite films, Death in Venice however is pretentious, distasteful and downright boring.
