THE STENDAHL SYNDROME
A film review by Jeff Frentzen
Copyright 1997 Jeff Frentzen
Here is a review of Dario Argento's latest movie, taken from the Dark Waters web site.
Dark Waters is the intelligent journal for people interested in little-known horror, science-fiction, and fantasy movies; including banned, sick, obscure, "psychotic" (and so-called psychotronic) films that were never released, barely released, or released and then suppressed.
1995 112 MINUTES Columbia (Japan) DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO WITH: ASIA ARGENTO, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN, PAOLO BONACELLI, MARCO LEONARDI, LUIGI DIBERTI, JULIEN LAMBROSCHINI
Long time fans of Italian director Dario Argento's work are already recoiling at THE STENDAHL SYNDROME. This extremely dark and brutal film does not behave like the police procedurals or giallos of Argento's past; nor does it proceed like the horror movie it is advertised to be. It is, rather, a deliberately paced and studied chronicle of a woman's psychological destruction at the hands of a severely disturbed, modern-day sicko. Assistant Inspector Anna Manni (Asia Argento), part of an anti-rape task force in Rome, blindly follows a tip that a nasty serial rapist/killer will show up at the Uffizi art museum in Florence. Wandering the gallery and contemplating the great works of art, she falls victim to the Stendahl syndrome, a real condition that amounts to a physical and emotional shutdown as a result of sensory overload. She collapses and suffers from temporary amnesia. This is when she is approached by the killer, Alfredo. Anna and Alfredo embark on a deadly relationship of hate and violence, in which she is possessed by him physically and psychologically. Her experiences are so profound that even when Alfredo is killed, he "lives on" in her. THE STENDAHL SYNDROME is one of Italian director Dario Argento's most surrealistic works. The opening 15 minutes, which play without any dialogue, culminates in an extraordinary sequence of Anna halluncinating and "entering" one of the paintings in the gallery. Likewise, the movie finds Argento between two worlds -- One, the depressingly prosaic storytelling landscape that screenwriter Argento populates with unimaginative cop characters and brutal killers; and the other, more interesting panorama in which Argento the visual stylist can create iconoclastic, horrific imagery. Superficially, THE STENDAHL SYNDROME is inspired by his TENEBRAE (aka UNSANE), which also offered a protagonist who investigates but eventually takes part in a murder spree. Unlike TENEBRAE, however, there is no facile denouement to unravel whodunit and why. Anna's transformation from an innocent to murderess is an abstraction that Argento does not let us understand, or cannot understand himself. It simply is, as though her long-buried madness is simply brought to conscious life by Alfredo. In addition, the movie's clinical approach subjects the viewer to four ghastly rape scenes that document Alfredo's consummate depravity. Moreso here than in any other Argento film, characters are defined by set design and an outstanding use of color. Conspicuously named real locations -- such as Rome and Florence -- reinforce the film's more subtle horrors, in which Alfredo is able to move effortlessly in public and continue his murderous activities without being noticed. He and Anna blend frighteningly well into their surroundings. But when Anna starts wearing a blonde wig to hide a facial scar, she is suddenly, jarringly different, mock glamourous and at odds with her environment. The change conveys her deep psychological suffering without having to explain every nuance of why she is that way. Technically, THE STENDAHL SYNDROME is well made, with outstanding Giuseppe Rotunno cinematography and a haunting music score by Ennio Morricone. Argento's script suffers from too much banal dialog; the characters' attitudes and speech fit with the movie's overall attempt to portray everyday realism, but little of what they say is compelling or delivered smartly. As Anna, Asia Argento underplays the part and is strangely uninvolving. Thomas Kretschmann makes a believable serial killer, but the rest of the cast is seriously damaged by some annoying English dubbing. Jeff Frentzen
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