ThiefHott Too much of everything

Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Scott LeBrun Veteran horror film director Dario Argento visits the popular "cop vs. killer" genre with interesting if not spectacular results. His stunning daughter Asia stars as Anna Manni, a police detective on the trail of a serial rapist / murderer. When she herself gets nabbed by the charismatic psycho (Thomas Kretschmann), and seems to overpower and defeat him, she actually becomes more obsessed with him than ever before.Give Argento credit for handling things with a little more restraint than usual. He doesn't go overboard in giving his film stylistic flourishes, instead focusing more on the story. He does meld more traditional varieties of horror - gore lovers should walk away from this one fairly satisfied - with more psychological ones. "The Stendhal Syndrome" (the title is taken from the emotional / mental reaction that susceptible people have to powerful works of art) has enough of a brooding atmosphere to make it acceptable entertainment. One very worthy component is the typically solid music score composed by Ennio Morricone. However, as the film moved onward, it worked towards a too predictable denouement. In the end, it doesn't offer much to people who have seen more than their fair share of films in the genre.Competent filmmaking at every level does help. It's true that the acting throughout Argentos' filmography has often come up lacking, and while none of it here is exemplary, the actors do their best. Asia is sexy from start to finish, as her character makes a few changes in her appearance, either cutting her dark hair short or wearing a blond wig on top of it. Kretschmann is fine as the psycho; devotees of Italian cinema will recognize some of the names in the supporting cast, such as Paolo Bonacelli (as the psychologist), Veronica Lazar, and Cinzia Monreale.If you're inclined to appreciate the more garish and virtuoso touches of past Argento productions, then "The Stendhal Syndrome" may not have as much appeal.Six out of 10.

Michael_Elliott Stendhal Syndrome, The (1996) *** (out of 4) Unsettling if flawed film from Argento about police woman Anna Manni (Asia Argento) who is investigating a serial rapist who is now starting to murder his victims. Anna is in a museum looking for the suspect when she passes out from the visions she gets from the paintings and a while later she's in her room getting brutally raped by the suspect. This here leads her to slowly begin to go insane while at the same time continuing to look for the rapist who also has something for her. THE STENDHAL SYNDROME runs right at two-hours and it would be hard to argue that the first hour doesn't feature some of the directors greatest work. It would also be hard to argue that the final hour of the film slowly starts to fall apart and leads up to one of the worst endings you're likely to see anywhere. The first hour of the film is quite remarkable as it features the director at the top of his game and especially the opening twenty-minutes, which are just as unsettling as the opening sequence in SUSPIRIA. The opening scenes inside the museum are quite hypnotic and they really bring you into the mind of our lead because Argento's style of direction really does make you feel as if these paintings are alive. These images getting inside the head of Anna are a major part of the plot and the director has no trouble at making the viewer see and feel everything Anna is going through. The rape sequence certainly isn't as graphic as some more infamous films but it's still quite shocking and unsettling simply because of how Argento directs it. Just take a look and really study the editing style of this scene because it's what really sells the material. It also does hurt that the brilliant music score by Ennio Morricone perfectly captures an atmosphere that is quite eerie and certainly very unnerving. Morricone made many great scores in his career and this one here is certainly near the top. The problems begin in the second half of the film and sadly they are quite major. For starters, the film's second half tries to be more psychological and get inside the mind of Anna but I think the film fails horribly at this. Not once does this little experiment work and I think Dario is much better at handling the fast, wild imagery than the more quiet, mental stuff. It certainly doesn't help that the majority of the visual style takes a backseat and this causes the film to slow down so much that it really does drag in spots. The two-hour running time certainly could have been helped had ten or fifteen-minutes of this been edited out including an entire sequence at Anna's fathers house. As for the ending, I won't spoil it but it's not nearly as shocking as the director intended. Asia certainly does a very good job in the role and especially considering the screenplay lets her character down in the second half. The actress certainly stands out compared to the supporting players. Some of the supporting performances are rather embarrassing but the dubbing doesn't help matters either. However, even with the countless flaws in the second half, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME is still a very effective film. The masterful direction and score perfectly make up for all the flaws and it makes the film worth viewing.

mrc77 I am giving this an 8 out of 10 because it is by Dario Argento, who I love. There are several things about Dario Argento's films that I don't love. Number one on that list would be the dubbing. I would prefer it if Argento would let the actors speak Italian and have subtitles at the bottom of the screen. I would love to hear Asia Argento speak Italian in this movie. I would love it if her vocals were not put in later, but instead were recorded by a boom mike over her head. I hate dubbing period, but I have gotten used to the use of it in Argento's films. The first half of the movie was kind of hard to get through, but it wasn't bad. I think Asia is a great actress, and she has a great style. I think she is going to have a breakout role one day that will cause the whole world to know her as a household name. The second half, I would call the "blonde wig" half of the movie was so much better than the first half. However, you can't have one without the other. If the first half is dark, the second half is the light. The scenes with Asia and Marie in the park and on the scooter were great. The scooter scene with Asia and Marie riding along the street with the old buildings in the background was one of the best cinematic moments I have seen in a while. I even liked how the people in the other cars were waving. I did not see the twist coming at the end. The whole movie reminded me of Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear, Vertigo, Alice in Wonderland (when Asia is in the blue dress, running down the alternate exit of her building), and that Ashley Judd movie, Kiss The Girls. There were also several parts that reminded me of other Argento movies, but that is a given in all of his movies. The score was really cool. The closeups of the bullet traveling through skin was kind of neat, too. All in all, not bad - much more complex than his Hitchcock movie, but that wasn't too bad either. I also love how Argento always uses great locations for movies ... as if he is paying homage to all the beautiful parts of Italy (and Germany sometimes). It really makes you want to visit every place, and Hitchcock did the same with his movies. The only thing about Argento that bugs me is that he never can seem to make a really good, dark, complete movie. I think Suspiria is one of his few movies that worked on every level. I enjoyed Phenomena (Creepers), too, and I remember liking Deep Red (but I need to watch it again ... it has been a while). I just wish he would do something that really puts all of his talent into one movie.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx There's a rapist on the loose in this movie, we've no idea why, we never find out why. It's not a whodunnit, it's not a procedural, just what on earth is it? It seems Dario simply wanted to play around filming his daughter in bizarre and perilous situations, hopefully with an admixture of paintings and objets d'art. It's a perverse film really, it's all daughter fixation, the other characters are paper thin, the rapist/killer more a force of nature. If you wanted to look at it as an experimental film, and focus more on what was going on behind the camera rather than in front, maybe you could get a lot out of it (Stendhal Syndrome would make a good double bill with Serge Bromberg's reconstruction of Henri-Georges Clouzot's unfinished movie Inferno, which is made from basically hours of screen test fixating on Romy Schneider). I confess that I think most people would get nothing out of this movie other than an aching ass. Viewed conventionally it's a ship full of holes, but if and once you realise you're OK with swimming down to Davy Jones' locker in conch apparel, it's quite the Epicurean experience.Some of the movie is in Rome, some Viterbo, some Florence. Dario obviously wanted to shoot museums in these three places, and so contrived the plot to do that, but without much craft at all. The plot really becomes downright damned weird and even includes psychic transference.I just love the start of Stendhal Syndrome, the Ennio Morricone soundtrack is quite creepy and we see Detective Anna Manni (Asia Argento) freaking out at the Uffizi, because of the power of the paintings, literally falling into Pieter Breughel's painting The Fall of Icarus. I love paintings so I really dig all of that, I spent a lot of time looking at Caravaggio's Medusa when I went to the Uffizi, when I was a kid the idea of Medusa's head used to scare the hell out of me. The Morricone motif overlayed for the Caravaggio is nightmarish. There's another great scene in a grafittoed grotto which mirrors the Uffizi stuff.I have to admit that getting to the end of this movie has been a little project of mine. For some reason I always fall asleep during Dario's more sprawling films. There's half an hour of fat to be trimmed off this one, and Four Flies on Grey Velvet I've totally given up on, four times asleep, even though the last attempt on the summit was at midday on a Sunday.And I have to be honest with you dear user (big on admissions today) I found the scene when Anna presses her boyfriend up against the wall and fondles him (and more) to be really very erotic.It's a god-damned mess, but I finally got through it. If you would welcome the thick-lipped kiss of oblivion for a moment, and aren't wound up too tight about production values, you could give this a go.