The Stendhal Syndrome
(1996)
Starring: Asia Argento and Thomas Kretschmann.
Directed By: Dario Argento
DVD Information
Troma Entertainment - Dolby Digital Mono - Theatrical Trailers - Interviews - more
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The Brilliant italian director Dario Argento who brought us such films as "Suspria"(My favorite), "Tenebre" and "Deep Red" brings to life, "The Stendhal Syndrome". A beautiful cinematic journey into the macabre world of a young policewoman who subsequently suffers from this syndrome. The Stendhal Syndrome is a disease that makes a person hallucinate and becomes dizzy at the sight of paintings .
This story begins with Anna Manni (played by Dario Argento's daughter Asia Argento), entering an art museum. When in the museum Anna becomes overwhelmed by the large beautiful paintings and is taken into the looking glass inside a painting. Through her hallucination she is suddenly swimming in the ocean and encounters a rather large fish. When she approaches the fish she places her lips on his and two have an intimate kiss together. Suddenly reality strikes and Anna collapses and passes out while striking her mouth on the edge of hard table. Ouch.
In this thriller, a serial rapist/killer is on the loose and Anna is assigned to capture this maniac. When he finally lures her into a trap in a museum, Anna is then brutally raped herself. Very shocking and disturbing to watch director Argento captures the rape scene with intense realism.
During the film the director uses some very unique camera moves as we can see a bullet go in slow motion into the side of a victims face then protrude out the other side. When Anna takes her pill we can see the pill enter her mouth and the camera takes us down her throat along side the pill. Very unique CGI (computer generated graphics) moments captured here.
Troma's DVD transfer of Stendhal Syndrome is presented in a non-anamorphic 1:66.1 aspect ratio. I found the picture to be a little dark with the color looking a bit washed out.
This may have been the way Dario Argento intended it.
The sound is in mono and it would have been nice if there was a Dolby Digital 5.1 re-master for the film.
There are many extra Troma goodies on this one. My favorite being an interview with Director Dario Argento and Tromas head and founder Lloyd Kauffman. Although hard to understand with his bad italian accent, Argento talks about The Stendhal Syndrome. Other features include: Footage of Dario Argento in Stockholm, A commentary from special effects master Sergio Stivaletti, Director Ruggero Deodato talks about his film "Cannibal Holocaust", Troma's funny interactive "Intellingence Test 2", A funny strange little bit with Julie Strain and some Troma Trailers.
I would like to commend Argento for sticking to his artistic perspective on the movie by not giving it to a major Hollywood distributor who would have chopped the film to bits. Instead he gave the film to Troma who in turn releases the Director's Edition unedited and shown just the way Argento visioned it. When asked about filming his daughter's rape scene, Argentos comment was that is only a movie. That is not real life and that when people go see a movie they should know that what they are seeing is not real and only a movie. Another bit of information on the film is that they originally wanted actress Jennifer Jason Leigh to play the play the part of Anna. I don't know what happened to that but being a big Jennifer Jason Leigh fan one can only imagine.
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