text: The opening of MORTE A VENEZIA resembles a Duran Duran music video with classical music and this is the highlight of the movie <br /><br />" In terms of what Theo ? " <br /><br />In terms of everything , but especially excitement . I doubt if there's ever been a more sluggish slower moving movie than this one . Yeah okay it's a European art house movie so I wasn't expecting Charles Bronson to massacre hordes of bad guys but even so I did expect some substance if not an actual plot <br /><br />The film revolves around Professor Gustav Von Aschenbach visiting Venice . Gustav visits Venice and goes on a gondola , Gustav eats in an expensive restaurant , Gustav looks out of his hotel window and if it's excitement you want Gustav has a flashback <br /><br />Bad enough if this was the entire movie but it gets worse because Gustav notices a pretty boy teenager . So you've got a middle aged academic lusting after some teenage boy he has seen , some old queen is becoming obsessed with a stranger . Great idea for a movie ? I don't think so either and thank gawd it remained a yawn fest instead of some sleazy precursor to gay porn <br /><br />I notice a lot of people who praise this movie have tried to intellectualise it . I can only be monosyllabic and unpretentious in my view and say that the only subtext I could relate to was the physical and emotional disintegration of Gustav but it wasn't caused by the effete beauty of the teenage boy - It was caused by watching such a boring and ostentatious movie