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Reviewed by:
Troy Howarth on October 24, 2007.

A policewoman (Asia Argento) on the trail of a rapist-murderer falls prey to a bizarre psychological disorder linked to great works of art known as the Stendhal Syndrome...

While camped in America, where he had hoped to match his phenomenal success in Europe, Dario Argento directed Two Evil Eyes in Pittsburgh with his good friend George A. Romero before revisiting his signature genre, the giallo, with the Minneapolis-lensed Trauma (1992). It was during this time frame that Argento read an article about a new psychological study by Graziella Magherini called The Stendhal Syndrome - reading of the strange conditions linked to the syndrome, he realized that he had suffered from it as a young boy while visiting the Parthenon with his parents. His imagination fueled, Argento set about researching the phenomenon and penned another American-set script. Slated to be filmed in Phoenix, Arizon, and to star Bridget Fonda (an avowed fan of the director's) the film ran into various problems after Fonda withdrew from the project. Argento had already grown impatient with the American way of making films, and determined to re-locate to Italy and re-tool the script accordingly. To put things into perspective, Argento's status in his native country was such that he was allowed access to film in the famed Uffizi Gallery, a site previously denied to any other filmmaker, whereas in America he would have been lucky if his violent script had been allowed to roll without major alterations. The experience of filming in America wasn't just disheartening to Argento - it caused a major split in his fanbase, many of whom believed that he had diluted his vision and "sold out" in search of American box office gold. It was with great anticipation that the fans awaited his latest, no-holds-barred, Italian giallo - yet the film that emerged split fans like few of his films before it.

Whereas many Argento gialli were fun, colorful exercises in over the top Grand Guignol, The Stendhal Syndrome hit fans like an anguished, existential cry from the soul. Earlier Argento gialli might be accused of trivializing, or even glamorizing, the violent acts they depicted, but the same cannot be said for this tour de force. Anchored by Argento's most mature screenplay, the film explores the psychological scars of violence - it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that the film begins where many earlier Argento films end; picture an entire film exploring the altered mental states of David Hemmings in Deep Red (1975) or Daria Nicolodi in Tenebre (1982) after they've been warped by the violence they've been subjected to. In truth, the titular syndrome is more of a narrative hook than the sum total of the picture - true, it plays into the way in which Asia Argento's protagonist changes as the film unfolds, but the psychedelic imagery it conveys (people entering paintings, etc) is dispensed in the first half of the picture while the rest of the film charts her gradual mental breakdown. As such, the film plays more like a variation on Roman Polanski's masterful Repulsion (1965) than as an extension of anything the director had previously attempted.

The somber tone and finely crafted screenplay are aided by fine performances and top notch technical credits. In the years since first bursting onto screens in her father's productions, Asia Argento has established herself as a sex symbol (she was named Maxim's "Sexiest Woman in the World") and an all-around "bad girl" of indie cinema, but few of the roles she has taken in the interim have really tested her skills as an actress. Many of the films in which she's appeared, quite frankly, have used her as mere eye candy, and she's responded to these uninspired assignments accordingly. To see her performance in The Stendhal Syndrome, however, removes any doubt: Asia Argento can act. She plays Argento's most complex protagonist with tremendous depth and feeling. One can carp that she was too young for the role (she would have been 20 when the film went before cameras), she nevertheless conveys the courage, intelligence and strength that the role requires; as she begins to unwind, she descends into paranoia and fear in a way that recalls her mother Daria Nicolodi's finest work, for Mario Bava in his final theatrical feature Shock (1977). It's a brave, emotionally naked performance, one of the finest to be found in an Argento film - though its reputation has been stunted by the fact she was dubbed by another, lesser actress for the English language version, despite the fact that she played the role in English. The supporting cast is dominated by German actor Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist), cast as the most frightening villain in all of Argento's work. With his good looks and chiseled build, he evokes the spirit of the evil Yuppiedom of Brett Easton Ellis - he's a serial sociopath who rapes not because he can't get sex on his own, but because he gets off on pure unbridled sadism. It's a frightening performance, and the scenes between him and Asia unfold with palpable tension and electricity. Beyond these two defining performances, the film benefits from superb cinematography by the great Giuseppe Rotunno (Satyricon) and a haunting score by Ennio Morricone. Rumor has it that Rotunno and Argento were not entirely simpatico during the filming, that Rotunno was scornful of the use of digital technology and that Argento found his painstaking methods to be a literal pain, but the end result is one of the most handsomely photographed films in Argento's ouevre. Apart from a film flashy, love-em-or-hate-em visual tropes (such as a subjective shot of pills going down Asia's throat, or the slow motion shot of a bullet entering a victim's cheek) much of the film unfolds in a delicately composed, rigidly controlled point of view. Rotunno's golden lighting does justice to the great works of art, while making the most of shadows and other visual devices to get into the psychology of the protagonist. It's to be regretted that Argento and Rotunno will likely never work together again, especially in light of the director's decision to employ the lesser talents of Ronnie Taylor or Frederic Fasano on later pictures. Morricone's score is the finest he ever did for Argento - the legendary composer had, of course, composed the signature sounds of Argento's first three films, but an argument over the music in Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) caused them to part ways. They settled their differences by the time of Stendhal, and the end result is one of Morricone's finest achievements. The beautiful main theme is repeated obsessively in subtle variations, and the music always manages to evoke precisely the right feeling and emotion.

Dark, unsettling and genuinely disturbing, The Stendhal Syndrome may not be one of Argento's "fun" movies, but it is one of the finest he's ever made.

One of Argento's finest films finally gets the treatment it deserves from Blue Underground. Apart from some problems with the subtitles, this release is virtually perfect.

Asia Argento, Thomas Kretschmann