This film is a summary of Visconti's obssessions: the decadence of nobility, death, aesthetic search, homosexuality...All mingled with melancholic mastery. Slow-paced just to make you abler to contemplate all its beauty (which is in the music and the images as well as in the story)this is the type of film we are not allowed to enjoy anymore, brave, deeply personal and intelligent. The genuine fruit of a genius like Visconti.