The Stendhal Syndrome

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
1996

La Sindrome di Stendhal | The Stendhal Syndrome
Dario Argento
ITALY, 1996
120 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Medusa Film
Producer: Dario Argento, Giuseppe Colombo
Screenplay: Dario Argento, inspired by Graziella Magherini’s book “La Sindrome di Stendhal”
Cinematographer: Giuseppe Rotunno
Editor: Angelo Nicolini
Production Designer: Antonello Geleng
Music: Ennio Morricone
Principal Cast: Asia Argento, Thomas Kretschmann, Marco Leonardi, Luigi Diberti, Paolo Bonacelli, Julien Lambroschini, John Quentin

“I set myself a goal of showing 1,000 different ways of dying, and I’m nearly there!”—Dario Argento

After a period of fascinating, uneven work, the master of Italian horror has returned to his roots in awesome style. The Stendhal Syndrome is simply one of the most innovative, obsessive and genuinely unsettling thrillers since...well, since Deep Red and Suspiria shocked and inspired audiences years ago. In its audacious, breathtaking opening segments, a woman—played by Asia Argento, Dario’s daughter and Italy’s biggest young female star—desperately runs through the legendary Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Gradually she becomes transfixed by the paintings on the walls. As she moves from Botticelli’s “Primavera” to Caravaggio’s “Medusa,” a strange sensation takes hold of her. At Bruegel’s “The Flight of Icarus,” she falls into a hallucinatory trance, literally entering the paintings. Suffering from temporary amnesia, she is helped back to her hotel room by an attractive young man. There she again falls into an art work, a reproduction of Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch.” In this painting she learns her true identity; she is Anna Manni, a policewoman assigned to solve a series of grisly sex murders in Rome. Shuttling back to reality, she encounters the man who helped her that morning: he’s in her bed, ready to rape her and holding a razor blade in his teeth. As the film progresses, Anna is transformed physically and emotionally as the rapist shadows every aspect of her life, her lovers and, especially, her dreams. Only a brutal and horrifying confrontation can rid her of this evil. As visually lush as all his recent work, The Stendhal Syndrome features a far more focused script and terrific performances all around. For those unfamiliar with Argento’s work, this is an excellent introduction to one of the horror world’s great treasures.
—Noah Cowan