Världens vackraste pojke

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.

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?

Intriguing story, good cinematography but the overall story felt incomplete at times.

Maybe it was the run time that didn't do it for me, 92 min felt too much for this kind of story and what the creators were trying to say, maybe it's the fact that I personally prefer documentaries with more of a "did he or did he not" feeling in their storytelling.

Maybe that's just me.

Never mind besides my review I really hope the protagonist of the documentary finds his inner peace eventually, he seams like a genuinely good guy.

This documentary points to a particular case of this boy, who's grandmother tried to get her grandson to make into the film industry. Like many parents were hoping their sons got Tadzio's part, Björn was the one who got it. But unlike many young stars we know, he had problems copping with the attention for being shy and also having family problems didn't particularly helped him. In no way I see him been exploited. He just needed more feedback maybe.

Very interesting documentary about a human being sacrificed on the altar of the Seventh Art ;in 1972 , Visconti was at the peak of his genius and he had flair for discovering actors (Helmut Berger ,one of his lovers ,was prodigious in "la cadeti dei degli" and "Ludwig".)

So he spent some time to find the beautiful boy who would fascinate Dirk Bogarde in the fascinating "death in Venice" ;but,unlike Berger, Bjorn was still a child , traumatized by his mom's death when he was too young; although the director insisted the boy was his protégé and his love remained platonic, he did not seem to realize the young actor was overtaken by events : the newsreel at the movie première is revealing :the boy seems to live in a dream , or rather a sweet nightmare :he seems ill-at-ease among these stars (you can spot Romy Schneider on one photograph) and he never was to get over this "too much too soon" celebrity .

The doc blends the past ( the boy photographed from every angle ,even shirtless, pictures of Venice and of the places where the movie took place) and the present : Bjorn has become a long-haired bearded gaunt man (born 1955) ,old before his time ; the first scene in his apartment shows a guy who does not take care of himself ; his half-sister was perhaps his only helping hand when he was a kid, now she's replaced by his daughter even though his marriage was a failure ; now the man wanders aimlessly on the beach, watching the sea;he has returned to Venice ,but although he has become (reluctantly) a gay icon, his life was forever destroyed in a luxury hotel where Silvana Mangano was only a celluloid mother.