The Movie:

After finishing up Trauma and his half of Two Evil Eyes, Dario Argento returned to his native Italy to shoot The Stendhal Syndrome, once again starring his daughter (and future Maxim Magazine 'Sexiest Woman Alive') Asia Argento who would soon become popular in North America for her starring role alongside Vin Diesel in XXX.

The film follows a young female detective named Anna Marin (Asia Argento) who works primarily on rape cases. She's been trailing a serial rapist for some time now and when she winds up in Florence and finds out he may be in town, she sets up a meeting with an informant in hopes that she'll get the information she needs to stop the fiend. They pair meet at an art gallery but upon entering the building, Anna becomes overwhelmed by the paintings which soon swirl around her and cause her to fall down and knock her head.

When Anna wakes up, she is completely unaware of where she is or how she got there and is obviously not so trusting of the man named Alfredo (Thomas Kretschmann) who appears to only be trying to help her. She heads back to her hotel but later that night runs into Alfredo again, who turns out to be the rapist she's been pursuing for some time now. He turns his sights on her and brutally rapes her but she manages to escape before he can kill her. With the symptoms of the Stendhal Syndrome kicking in and the emotional, physical and mental pain Alfredo has inflicted on her, Anna has to track him down and stop him from doing it again before he finds her and silences her permanently.

Based around a unique but completely real psychosomatic condition (named after a French author) which causes dizziness or fainting when those afflicted with it are exposed to an overwhelming amount of art, The Stendhal Syndrome is one of Dario Argento's more psychologically layered films. The film deals not only with what we see happen literally and chronologically on the screen but it also delves into Anna's own guilt and the psychological ramifications of her experiences at the hands of Alfredo. The controversial rape scene, a disturbing moment by its very nature, is made even more unsettling when you consider that the director has cast his own flesh and blood to play the victim, though Asia handles the role particularly well and is actually very believable even if she looks a little young to be a police detective.

The pacing of the film is a little different than most pictures but that's not necessarily a bad thing. By placing the nastiest set piece in the middle of the movie Argento leaves us wondering if he's going to try and top it or not by the end of the film. It's actually a rather clever way to create suspense and it works in the movie's favor even if those hoping for a gore-soaked conclusion might be left disappointed. Adding to the tone of the movie considerably is the original score from Ennio Morricone. While Morricone had scored Argento's first three giallos (Cat O' Nine Tails, Four Flies On Grey Velvet and The Bird With The Crystal Plumage) the pair had not worked together since the early seventies. Morricone's compositions really do a fantastic job of making the scenes where Anna's disorder kicks in all the more hallucinatory and they also play a large part in the success of the more tense murder set pieces and suspense sequences in the picture. The movie also does a really good job of making us think about the relationship between a work of art and someone attempting to discern it, the film itself working on much the same level as the paintings which envelope and ultimately confuse Anna so much.

With all of that said, the picture isn't perfect, particularly in its English version. The dubbing is goofy and not all of the translations come across very well. As mentioned, Asia's not a bad actress at all but she definitely looks too young for the lead role and this does hamper things a tad. A couple of head scratching logic gaps don't help things much either and the CGI used for a few scenes, at the time very much in its infancy as a viable medium, haven't aged well.

Despite those flaws, however, The Stendhal Syndrome gets enough right that it's very definitely worth a look. The premise itself is a very interesting one and the script does a pretty good job of exploiting that unique condition that the film is named after. Argento's direction is slick and the cinematography, as dark as it is, really is quite effective. Add to that a couple of memorable set pieces and some gorgeous location shooting and it's easy to see how the pluses certainly outweigh the minuses making this film a great choice for horror fans who don't mind thinking outside the box.

Video:

Blue Underground's 1.66.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of The Stendhal Syndrome is truly a thing of beauty. Color reproduction is dead on, black levels are strong throughout and print damage is nowhere to be seen. Some very fine grain is noticeable if you want to look for it, as it should be, but the picture is very clean, sharp and detailed throughout. Edge enhancement is never a problem and neither are mpeg compression artifacts. Some very slight shimmering pops up here and there but if you're not looking for it, odds are you're not going to notice it in the first place. Flesh tones look lifelike and natural and sharpness and contrast are dead on. Previously available in North America only by way of the ugly, muddy horrible Troma DVD, Blue Underground's new transfer is a revelation and it presents the film in a transfer that really does the quirky visual style justice.