Der Tod in Venedig (nicht verwenden)

After a setback in his career, aging composer Gustav von Aschenbach takes a vacation at a luxury hotel in Venice, where he falls in love with a Polish boy named Tadzio.

In this adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella of the same name, Gustav von Aschenbach—here not a successful writer as in Mann's novel, but an unsuccessful, sickly composer—embarks on a recuperative trip to Venice. At his hotel, he encounters the youthful Tadzio, with whom he immediately falls hopelessly in love. Without exchanging a single word with him, Aschenbach develops a veritable obsession with the boy. Not only does he increasingly forget himself, but he also ignores every warning about the Indian cholera that is spreading throughout the city. Instead of newly composed music, the film is accompanied by excerpts from various classical works, with the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony running through the plot like a leitmotif.