In this stylistically lavish, but painfully slow, adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Bogarde) travels to a Venetian seaside resort in search of rest after a period of artistic and personal stress. He finds no peace there as he becomes infatuated with a beautiful adolescent boy, Tadzio (Andrsen) who is on vacation with his family. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty that Aschenbach has long sought. The onset of a deadly pestilence threatens them both and represents the corruption that compromises and threatens all ideals. Beautiful cinematography and Mahler's 5th on the soundtrack contributes to the film's sense of aesthetics but many viewers will find it a rather tedious experience.