a film to divide it viewer . just criticism point at it funereal pace and over use snap zoom and persistent and linger gaze between the protagonist . advocate point to dirk bogarde mighty performance and pasqualino de santis benchmark photography of venice . take altogether and this might suggest an indulgent and romanticise elegy for the nobility of homosexual love ( at a time and 1971 and when it be become consensually legal ) . in fact visconti have succeed in make a rich and more complex film than such a single issue vehicle . he have knit his idea foible and all into a meticulously paced arc . inside this do indeed sit the central performance of bogarde aschenbach . rather than a simpering and johnny come lately gay and he manage to give a pathetic composer beat by tragedy and misunderstood integrity who see salvation in tadzio . his mesmerised staggering around an increasingly hellish venice after the boy be a straight metaphor for the artist tenacity for truth in the teeth of the dilettante mob ( and it be explicitly cut with such a flashback ) . mahler music be possibly a little over use although it be well appropriate . the italian overdub be a wearing anachronism but thankfully the act doesn not suffer too much . positive .