Movie Review: The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) - NSFW

Last month I read some exciting news about the master of horror, and giallo all’italiana in particular, Dario Argento having made a new film after ten long years of relative absence from movie theaters and festivals. To me personally it doesn’t matter if the last installment in The Three Mothers was a disappointment, and Dracula 3D was just meh, being the wrong thing at the wrong time – I still have an important reminder set up on my phone for the 20th September, 2022 in order to remember to check the release date for Dark Glasses on AMC’s Shudder this Fall. Argento is one of those filmmakers who’s work, if it doesn’t live up to expectations, leaves one with definite, clear understanding about what was expected but not there, and what could have been better, thus, even if you have just watched a failed Argento’s film, you still are aware of the reference points you have in your memory from the classic works of the director. That is just what the affairs with works of masters of a craft are like.

In Dario Argento’s film the syndrome is knitted together with the experience of someone who is both, a major crime victim and a witness. For the most part the major crime in the movie is rape, and the main victim of it is police detective Anna Manni, played by Asia Argento. The name of the actress is well known not only in the movie industry, but also as that of the leader of #MeToo movement back in 2017, when she accused the infamous mogul and alleged owner of a “casting couch” Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in 1997 when she was 22 years old – a year after The Stendhal Syndrome had been released.
Another lead role in this movie – that of Alfredo Rossi – is played by German actor Thomas Kretschmann, who is Asia’s partner in it, but not a partner which you as a spectator will like.

_{Sandro Botticelli: The Birth of Venus. Source}

In The Stendhal Syndrome we see the goddess of love, art and beauty emerging from subconscious with a razorblade, blood, ropes and violent crime. She doesn’t take pleasure in consensual activities. She is rather a perversion of beauty and love making.

_{Caravaggio: Narcissus. Source}

Anna Manni is a detective tasked with tracking down and capturing a man who has become both, a serial rapist and a serial killer. During the course of the film we get to a scene where he basically tells her that apparently her pursuit of him is a proof of how much she wants him...
It would appear that the whole notion of goddess of love might be a hallucination, and in reality it's a demon from entirely different place with a mask of Venus and plans that had never involved making love.

_{Asia Argento in The Stendhal Syndrome. Source}

I think one of the movie’s greatest strengths is the way it shows the experience of the lead heroine throughout the film – right from the beginning a rule is established that the picture doesn’t always want for you to distinguish how much of what happens, and what Anna sees is real. We even see tablets at one point, blended with some bad cgi. (If I had my way, I would have banned the use of cgi back in 1990s with the exception of Terminator 2. Also, The Stendhal Syndrome was the first Italian film to make use of cgi.) This, in my opinion, makes the whole point of this film – the depiction of experience of the ultimate rape victim – more intimate for the viewer; an aspect of this movie which gets strengthened also by occasional use of the first person POV. So, if you’ve not seen this film, be warned that it aims to be cruel to you. And also thorough when it comes to its aim; there is little doubt that the lead characters had been constructed using actual criminal cases and psychiatric records.

Making you feel like you’re a witness to a crime from the point of view of both, the victim and the victimizer, is where, as we may know from some of his giallo work back in 1970s, Dario Argento always excels, and that is certainly one of the reasons why we know the director’s name. The Stendhal Syndrome is a brilliant example of the talent. Even more so when taking into account the fact that this is a collaboration between father and daughter on a by no means easy subject matter.

_{Thomas Kretschmann in The Stendhal Syndrome. Source}

Thomas Kretschmann is another reason why The Stendhal Syndrome is worth a watch, in my opinion. At the time he was a relatively unknown actor, and his Ted Bundy type of psychopath rants in this movie probably wouldn’t have been enough for his name to stick in anyone’s memory, but today, looking at it in retrospect, the role of Alfredo Rossi, I think, helps to showcase dedication and talent playing diverse characters if one had seen and noticed him in Hostel III, Immortal and some Marvel universe blockbusters.

I can’t think of many films that would be able to create a very realistic feeling of the final act taking place somewhere in the middle of the film. Here The Stendhal Syndrome deals with the rule of thumb regarding plot structure in a flagrantly unruly manner. I can’t tell you exactly what happens because I think spoilers suck, but let me tell you this: the movie cuts through things many others would consider too risky like a champ.

Peer Ynt

The Stendhal Syndrome is available for streaming on Vudu

Read about Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore), another film The Stendhal Syndrome's production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng had been working on, in my blog post here.