Luchino Visconti's lovely and passionate adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella.

A composer, who writes music of chilly technical perfection, sails to Venice to escape both personal and professional failures -- as well as to forget the harsh words of a friend who has accused him of producing works thoroughly lacking in feelings and humanity. But when the composer glimpses an adolescent boy of stunning beauty, he undergoes an emotional transformation from which he will never recover. Though he makes no attempt to become acquainted with the child, the obsessed composer follows the boy down the Venetian streets and alleys, desperate only to be near him. But in his wanderings, he gradually comes to realize that something more sinister is taking place in the town, for the smell of disinfectant, death and decay lingers everywhere.