Synopsis: Visiting a museum to trap a serial rapist and murderer, Rome detective Anna Manni (Asia Argento) is overcome by hallucinations induced by the famous paintings. A handsome museum patron (Thomas Kretschmann) helps Anna to a taxi, but she's later terrorized, cut and raped by the criminal she hoped to catch. A police psychiatrist tells Anna about The Stendhal Syndrome, a delirious state experienced by visitors to art galleries. When it appears that the rapist is still stalking her, Anna goes home for a rest. But the seemingly unstoppable killer is not far behind, leaving a trail of female bodies in his wake.
The better 70's giallos are at heart exercises in high style, frequently taking place in modernistic settings resembling the contents of an Italian fashion magazine. Intense color designs emphasize the sensual surfaces of shiny crimson shoes and inky black leather gloves, and eroticize fatal encounters with stilettos and razor blades. 1996's The Stendhal Syndrome doesn't attempt the fetishistic sheen of Argento's earliest films but Rotunno's images are every bit as attractive. Digital effects visualize Anna Manni's subjective illusions, when the unbalanced young woman seems to 'enter' various works of art. A disturbing vocal in Ennio Morricone's eccentric score lends an appropriately creepy atmosphere to the entire experience. Although these devices are pictorially adept, their impact has been dulled by decades of surreal imagery. Anna hallucinates an ordinary hotel room door that connects with a crime scene we know to be far away, but the gag just seems too familiar.
The Stendhal Syndrome is reportedly a real phenomenon suffered by museum visitors, particularly sensitive people far from home. Patrons identify too strongly with the images or become emotionally overwhelmed by the experience. Argento presents some startling subjective-camera effects but the Syndrome remains a story gimmick. The policewoman and the killer are linked by a love of great art, which in the cramped vocabulary of the giallo film invariably indicates murderous madness.
What's missing is a coherent story or a meaningful theme. It soon becomes apparent that the narrative is a standard string of bloody set pieces, interrupted by occasional 'Stendhal effects'. Argento imitates classic Hitchcock to establish Anna Manni's obsession with great art. The subjective tricks, Morricone's music and the museum setting suggest Vertigo, especially when the villain intuits that Miss Manni will fall into a faint while hallucinating before a classic painting. Although Argento never reaches the copycat status of Brian De Palma, we've gone the homage route far too often.
The bulk of the story replays the same tired thriller clichés. Anna Manni's police protectors leave her ridiculously vulnerable and the killer easily finds quiet and private places for his screaming torture sessions. Miss Manni is allowed to stay on the job, when it's obvious that the young detective has become emotionally unhinged.
The tall and outwardly wholesome Thomas Kretschmann makes an excellent brute, although his actions are given no motivation. Asia Argento, the director's daughter, is a sympathetic actress but just seems too young. She's unconvincing as a seasoned detective assigned to a violent crime squad. Until the expected payback scene, her supposedly traumatized silence plays more like teenaged shyness.
Giallo fans will remark at the relatively tame level of sexual violence; the giallo format wasa once defined by sadistic tortures and kinky killing. The avoidance of nudity and graphic sexual humiliation seems a protective paternal gesture on the part of the director, who perhaps felt that the film's elaborate artistic hallucinations would compensate. Retro thrillers like The Stendhal Syndrome left the 90s horror market wide open for conquest. The reflexive satire of the Scream series and The Ring's new wave of J-Horror would soon take over completely.
Blue Undergrounds's 2-Disc Special Edition of The Stendhal Syndrome is yet another impeccable presentation. The flawless, colorful enhanced transfer is accompanied by audio in both 5.1 and DTS, with tracks in both dubbed English and Italian with optional English subtitles.
Director David Gregory assembles a quintet of effective and nicely judged featurettes with key filmmaking personnel. Dario Argento gives an overview of the production, and psychologist and author Graziella Magherini explains the very real phenomenon of the Stendhal effect. Assistant director Luigi Cozzi reviews his long association with the director and talks about the cult bookstore they have opened in Rome, and which he now manages. Production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng gives us insights into the process behind the film's startling look. Finally, special effects designer Sergio Stiletti examines The Stendhal Syndrome's exotic visuals, which are said to be the first CGI work done in Italy. Some of these illusions are weak and cartoonish -- a POV of pills in the esophagus and a bullet fired through a woman's cheeks. But the graphic tricks that pull Anna Manni into the gallery paintings are a more effective cross between the subjective delirium of Vertigo and Slavko Vorkapich's haunted map hallucinations in I Bury the Living.
For more information about The Stendhal Syndrome, visit Blue Underground.
by Glenn Erickson
