The first half of Dario Argento's heady psycho-thriller is a mesmerizing merging of dream and reality. A beautiful young Italian detective (Asia Argento, who does little to convince us she's a tough, seasoned cop) investigating a serial rapist is suddenly overwhelmed when the paintings in an art museum erupt with life. According to the film, this is "the Stendhal Syndrome," an intense and overwhelming response to art that turns the viewer mad. As Anna steps in and out of fantasy worlds like Alice through the looking glass, she's kidnapped by her quarry, who repeatedly rapes and tortures her in a dark, dank underground cave. The delirious nightmare of shattered reality becomes a sadistic, mean-spirited spectacle of murder and degradation--perpetrated on, of all people, the director's own bound and beaten daughter!--and the thriller disintegrates into a paranoid mystery of amnesia, split psyches, and shadowy phantoms. At its best this is a mesmerizing vision of madness: paintings melt into the real world while objectivity disintegrates before our eyes. But before the unexpectedly sensitive conclusion, Argento puts the viewer through a bravura but brutal series of gory murders (a slow-motion bullet passes through both cheeks of a helpless victim, and another shooting is viewed from inside the body) and unsavory violence. The poetic beauty of Phenomenon and the craftsmanship of Suspiria and Deep Red are sorely missed. --Sean Axmaker
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: very bad quality!!!!! Comment: This blu ray is horrible!!!
The quality video is terrible!! is better an old whs!!! Customer Rating: Summary: Watch out for poor image quality Comment: I've had this title for quite a while on DVD and although Blu-ray obviously makes everything sharper for high-def tvs, the middle 40% of the screen throughout the movie looks like it was delicately buffed with a belt sander, it's a kind of shimmering water effect. I wish they could have done a better transfer . . . Customer Rating: Summary: Repulsion and Then Some Comment: Fete of Death
"The Stendhal Syndrome" is a dark, brilliant, unnerving, and beautiful excursion into the mind of a policewoman who is brutally assaulted. Clearly, this is one of Dario Argento's masterworks, aided by a haunting score by the talented Ennio Morricone.
Asia Argento, who plays the heroine, becomes unhinged by her violation. She was not a well woman to begin with, suffering fom a syndrome named after the writer Stendhal that causes her to faint when she views certain works of art that overwhelm her. Her sexual victimization pushes her over the brink of madness, and what ensues is sheer terror. She experiences difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Her psychological predicament becomes all the more heinous when reality, in the guise of her assailant who continues to stalk her, becomes more horrifying than the chimeras conjured by her overheated imagination.
In its depiction of a woman's descent into madness, this film reminds me of Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," but Dario Argento's film is richer and fuller, whereas Polanski's is claustrophobic. "The Stendhal Syndrome" is Argento at the top of his game.
--Bryan Cassiday, author of "Fete of Death" Customer Rating: Summary: Contemporary thriller from Dario Argento. Comment: This was a mediocre film from Argento, while not really a bad film I just didn't like it that much. I used to have the previous edition from Troma which in my honest opinion was terrible and I suggest that people avoid that edition and just get this brilliant two disc special-edition from Blue Underground, this two disc BU release is a vast improvement and has a gorgeous transfer of the extended cut with no grain evident and the colors are clean and stunning. The extras on the second disc definitely make this a worthy purchase for Argento fans with a director interview, behind the scenes with discussions about the project. You also have other informative tidbits like fx work and a discussion with Graziella Magherini about real examples of the Stendhal condition which I thought was very interesting. Dario Argento throughout the past has shaped the aesthetics, themes and visual style of the Italian horror film but somewhere in his career he managed to switch styles and he no longer made the type of films he was famous for, this film is a good example of how different the variations of styles are between his older stuff and the modern thrillers he made later. Dario Argento's daughter Asia Argento portrays Anna Manni, a young detective in pursuit of a savage serial killer-rapist who has been terrorizing Italy. When his trail leads Anna to Florence's famed Uffizi Museum the investigation takes a violently psychotic turn. Anna is struck by the bizarre phenomenon known as the Stendhal Syndrome which is a psychological reaction to artwork that forces Anna into a mysterious trance. Stylishly directed by Dario Argento I thought it was a pretty good giallo/thriller. This time however Argento doesn't use as many camera tricks and weird angles as in some of his previous films, at certain points in the film it becomes rather brutal and violent with several rapes and murders including a sequence in which a woman is shot through both cheeks and the killer looks through both holes at Asia, while that was a good and disturbing sequence there were several others that were just too cheesy and rather bad like the one where Asia's character swallows some pills and we get to see this awful CGI shot of her throat from the inside and another scene where Asia is kissing a weird looking fish, this was just unnecessary and you couldn't take the film seriously with those scenes especially since it deals with a dark and disturbing subject matter. The film's biggest problem is the script which is credited to Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini and Graziella Magherini, the problem was that the killer is revealed almost immediately so there's no surprise or tension as to who's committing these brutal rapes and murders for most of the film and it does drag in places even though it does have a decent storyline with some good characters. The plot twist at the end was kind of silly too but still entertaining and I thought that the film was at least better than Phantom Of The Opera and The truly horrendous Card Player. Good but not brilliant it's at least worth watching especially if your a fan of Italian horror or like watching good psychological thrillers. Customer Rating: Summary: unpleasant, but a pleasant suprise Comment: On watching the first half of this film you'd be forgiven for thinking it's one of those grisly 'rape n' murder' horrors we get all the time nowadays - except for the occasional dream sequence thrown in (sometimes done well but there is some pointless cgi here)
I was shocked by some of the films content as I'm more used to his earlier work (daft slashers with great art direction) and hadn't seen anything by Argento post-'terror at the opera'. However, It was worth sitting through
What struck me the most was how moving I found the second half of this film. You really care for the characters - even the seemingly insignificant support characters - and at the films climax (although totally predictable) I actually weeped like a little girl
That could just be me though
But seriously, Argento has actually gone up in my estimation - There are some truly original moments and themes explored that you wont get in any other genre horror movie - this is a surreal psycological thriller more than anything. Perhaps not as enjoyable as Suspira, Tenebrae or Profondo Rosso - but definitly worth a look if you want to see a different side to Argento's work
