the opening of morte a venezia resemble a duran duran music video with classical music and this be the highlight of the movie in term of what theo . in term of everything and but especially excitement . i doubt if there ever be a more sluggish slow move movie than this one . yeah okay it a european art house movie so i wasn not expect charles bronson to massacre horde of bad guy but even so i do expect some substance if not an actual plot the film revolve around professor gustav von aschenbach visit venice . gustav visit venice and go on a gondola and gustav eats in an expensive restaurant and gustav look out of his hotel window and if it excitement you want gustav have a flashback bad enough if this be the entire movie but it get bad because gustav notice a pretty boy teenager . so you have get a middle age academic lusting after some teenage boy he have see and some old queen be become obsess with a stranger . great idea for a movie . i do not think so either and thank gawd it remain a yawn fest instead of some sleazy precursor to gay porn i notice a lot of people who praise this movie have try to intellectualise it . i can only be monosyllabic and unpretentious in my view and say that the only subtext i could relate to be the physical and emotional disintegration of gustav but it wasn not cause by the effete beauty of the teenage boy it be cause by watch such a boring and ostentatious movie .