In the film Death in Venice, the protagonist Aschenbach finally failed to “meet” the young Tadzio.
But the British actor Dirk Bogarde who played Aschenbach actually met with the young Björn Andrésen in real life.
The encounters inside and outside Death in Venice are not only between Bogarde and Björn Andrésen,
the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, whom Thomas Mann based on to shape the protagonist Aschenbach in the original novella,
and the British composer Benjamin Britten who adapted the novella into an opera also met unexpectedly in this work.
I myself also met Visconti, Britten, and Björn Andrésen - Tadzio by watching the film.
To reproduce this strange and fantastic encounter,
I’ve pieced together the story using the overlapping footage of the performers/interviewees/video participants, rather than the logic and narrative of any of the video content itself.
The video uses irreverent film clips on the left and right sides and is connected and continued by its performers’ presenting and shifting from one part to the next. In the end, the performers on both sides finally meet in Death in Venice, wherefore the “story” converges.