"The Soul Breaks Venice": The pursuit of beauty until death.

Filiberto 2022-08-08 23:55:29

"Broken Soul in Venice" describes a middle-aged married composer who was at the low tide of his creations who came to Venice for a vacation. During the holiday, he encountered a beautiful young man who was as beautiful as an ancient Greek statue with a holy and noble temperament. Later, he discovered that Venice was hiding the secret of the fatal epidemic, but he would rather stay in Venice and continue to stare around the beautiful boy until he died of eating overripe strawberries.

This is a very cramped, depressing but euphemistic and beautiful film.

The composer thinks about the beautiful boy, but he cannot express this obsession that is intolerable to society and cannot be accepted by the beautiful boy. So the camera accompanies the composer to stare around the beautiful boy from beginning to end, and there is almost no other action.

Or you have to spend a lot of patience to adapt to this kind of motionless gaze, but once you walk into the film's implicit but deep emotions, a dedication to beauty touches you and makes you reluctant to blame him.

The film cleverly connects the composer’s pursuit of the beauty of composition art to the fascination with beautiful young people. Both are also a pursuit of beauty. However, the film does not intend to discuss how to pursue it, nor does it contain positive hope, but strives to make you feel " How can one indulge in beauty; how can a person stop even to his death in order to witness the beauty in his heart.

It may be morbid, but this insecurity is an extreme expression of artistic spirit. Whether you deny it or praise it, after this story, you will at least understand the artists.

The film replaces symbolic symbols with common emotions, closely linking the two narratives on the outside and the inside, and creates a work that revolves around beauty, while the theme, style and story are perfectly combined.

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Extended Reading

Death in Venice quotes

  • Gustav von Aschenbach: I remember we had one of these in my father's house. The aperture through which the sand runs is so tiny that... that first it seems as if the level in the upper glass never changes. To our eyes it appears that the sand runs out only... only at the end... and until it does, it's not worth thinking about... 'til the last moment... when there's no more time left to think about it.

  • Gustav von Aschenbach: You know sometimes I think that artists are rather like hunters aiming in the dark. They don't know what their target is, and they don't know if they've hit it. But you can't expect life to illuminate the target and steady your aim. The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act.

    Alfred: No Gustav, no. Beauty belongs to the senses. Only to the senses.