Director: Dario Argento
Year: 1996
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: La sindrome di Stendhal
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Sent to Florence on an assignment, a female detective trying to catch her quarry is instead subject to a mysterious phenomenon that hampers her part of the investigation, but as she struggles to maintain her sanity, the real-world implications facing her continue surfacing.
Review:
This one here has a lot to really like about it. One of the big points here is that this presents one of the more intriguing and emotionally invested scenarios in the director’s catalog by mixing together a slew of impressive themes and ideas. Opening everything inside the museum, where we get the introduction to the condition involving the series of debilitating physical occurrences that strike her, makes for a genuinely affecting and enjoyable starting point that helps to make for an engaging entry into the story. This is followed up by the equally-traumatic entry for the killer to come about to play up matters quite nicely after this traumatic opening, and since the killer's identity is never kept a secret as it's revealed within the first minutes of the film, who it is, the rest of the time is concerned with the continuous mind-games being played on her. With the rape shown to have such an effect that it starts to change her personality based on the brutal interactions presented, it all becomes immensely enjoyable to see play out.
When the mental condition is presented, it becomes even better as the games become even more disturbing and realistic. That’s a rather impressive feat, and the inclusion of it makes the film creepy and more unique. What’s more impressive is that the titular condition provides plenty of opportunity to indulge a grand, inspired visual muse where paintings come to life around her as she enters the worlds upon the canvases in plenty of lurid detail. The camera swirls with its usual aplomb, lingering as much on the spectacular art and architecture of Florence and Rome as upon the death and chaos of the story. There is a striking scene near the beginning where they literally physically enter a painting in a hotel room and emerge out into a street murder scene in another city, at the end of which she then walks back across the street to the open waiting hotel room and out of the painting again. It is an extraordinary sequence and is done in one bravura shot, which is much more elegant for what is supposed to be just an exposition-filled flashback.
There’s also a series of impressive and beyond fantastic elements in the second half, where we witness the kind of psychological behavior and personality changes that come from the type of traumatic background that she experienced. Following up on the idea of her being thrust into such damaging situations at such a young age in such rapid succession of each other results in her being psychologically and physically transformed, turning her hair into a different style, preferring wigs of a different color, and exhibiting bizarre and unnatural behavioral outbursts that reek of repressed trauma. That creates the type of atmosphere where her paranoia is at the forefront of everything and seeks to come to terms with the various afflictions she’s suffered through, which makes for a truly fascinating character study yet does make for a sluggish enough genre effort moving away from the traditional elements to look at the implications given here, and alongside the various kills here that allow for some really nice and gruesome moments, these here are the film's fun moments.
This one doesn't have a whole lot wrong. The main issue is that the script here provides a number of illogical shortcuts that defy rational explanation. Late in the film, after donning a long, blonde, obviously fake wig, no one questions her when she wears it while doing her police duties. In another scene, she is being guarded by her former lover and wants to go meet her new lover. Even though the old lover already knows about her new lover, she decides to sneak out, and it doesn't occur to her either that a bathtub running for more than an hour might arouse suspicion, or that if she's in so much danger, she needs to be guarded, or that sneaking out might not be the best idea. Situations like this abound in the film, and rather than helping advance the plot, they merely slow it down. It also would've been nice to know why the situation comes up, as it merely documents what happens when it kicks in rather than offering why. The way it occurs, the film simply includes it merely to allow for the hallucinations rather than using it as a sound reason to use it in the film. Rather than these little illogical follow-ups, there's not a whole lot wrong with the film.
Overview: ****/5
This one is a rather impressive entry that has a lot of good points and only a few small ones that are present here to hold this one down. This is highly recommended to hardcore Argento and European slasher fans, or are tired of the American slashers of the time, while those who haven't been fond of Argento's works before won't be swayed over here over others.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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