The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

Did anyone else feel really uncomfortable with the way the filmmakers handled Bjorn reading the details surrounding his mother's death?

It's clearly a very traumatic experience for him, and quite right too, but the film makers refuse to cut away, keeping the camera rolling as it edges closer and closer to Bjorn's face.

Now maybe Bjorn requested that they don't shy away from capturing that moment, but it just didn't sit well with me. Particularly from a film whose key angle is the exploration of Bjorn's potential exploitation as a child. Can you really cry "exploitation" whilst being exploitative?

Bjorn Andresson's mother committed suicide when he was very young. He was then cast in Visconti's film 'Death in Venice', as Tadzio, who was, in the eyes of the film's main protagonist, "the most beautiful boy in the world". Subsequently, he does not consider himself to have had a very happy life. We're all made, at least in part, by our experiences; Bjorn, perhaps, was not well-served by his. Because his story is so particular, and peculiar, there's some interest here; but at the same time, things happen to all of us. One doesn't have to blame Bjorn for how his life turned out to see that there aren't stright lines between its beginning and its end; and sadly, there are many people who are unhappy and depressed, even those whose lives have contained little of external note. Sometimes, it's more interesting to watch a documentary than a fiction inspired by the truth; here, I felt that a novelisation of Bjorn's life might bee interesting than a straighforward reporting.

This film could have been a true gem. Sadly, the fascinating background story of Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice" quickly dissolves into a diluted, weird, shallow and to be honest simply boring exploration of what happened to the most beautiful boy in the world (without at all creating an in-depth portrait). All of the most interesting moments and crucial story parts were actually in the trailer which is great, but there's not much more to this film than the trailer.

There isn't that much written about Bjorn Andresen and not many interviews that I've read but I formed the impression that after making Death in Venice ( a film I love and have watched many times) he became what they call these days "entitled" and assumed because he'd been lucky enough to land the role of Tadzio (which didn't call for much in the way of acting ability,) the rest of his career should have been one long success. This didn't happen though he has had a number of acting roles during his adult life, details of which were hardly mentioned. I got the impression this change to semi obscurity left him resentful. I've met him several times and this impression was borne out. This unflattering aspect of his character was never explored, in case sympathy was lost I suppose. Although for some reason the row with his much younger girlfriend on the phone did give a glimpse of it!

The film was also very unbalanced, a few seconds view only of the famous film and Venice itself, nothing at all of the beautiful Hotel des Bains where it was set and far far too much time spent on his time in Japan. Very little said about his marriage, which ended after (I originally understood) to be the "cot death" of his younger child but in fact according to him, occurred because he passed out on the child while sharing a bed with him through intoxication. There seemed a distance between himself and his grown up daughter too though they were friendly. In fact I wonder whether this emotional detachment is a feature of the Swedish character and a reason why they seem to find relationships difficult to maintain. So I remain unconvinced that the Death in Venice experience as it were paved the way to a later unsatisfactory life, via exploitation etc. It played its part by raising expectations, but any unsatisfactoriness in later life must be mainly attributed to the kind of person Bjorn is.

I was interested to see he has a sister, something I've never till now heard mentioned, and that his mother was much more present in their younger lives than I'd realised. Yes, an intrinsically flawed personality albeit of an intelligent and not untalented man. I don't think we can blame Death in Venice for that.

A rare example of extreme proximity to the subject of this compelling documentary.,The moment that he tells about the death of his son is heartbreakingly honest. So much respect for this man that lost his mother, never knew his father, fell into the hands of an over ambitious and selfish grandma, was selected, owned, degraded and discarded by Visconti, couldn't grow up normally because of his instant fame and could never get rid of Tadzio ever again.