The Stendhal Syndrome
(La Sindrome di Stendhal)
(Medusa Region 2 Italian DVD)
(1996)
review by Blackgloves

********** Contains some spoilers! *********

Considering one of it's major themes concerns an exploration of the powerful and radically transforming nature of art, "The Stendhal Syndrome" is a powerful film that has been consistently neutered over the years by a series of very poor DVD releases. The film has suffered censorship, pan & scanned prints, and several murky colour-bleached transfers. Until recently the French Region 2 release was the only decent DVD version available, and that has been very hard to get hold of for several years now. But the waiting is finally at an end: the Italian company Medusa have just produced a 2-disc edition which presents the film in a wonderfully vivid form that includes two extra scenes that have never been available in any of the previous editions!

The film has always invoked rather mixed responses from fans of Argento: although initially a thriller, it quickly dispenses with all those giallo conventions that have marked most of Argento's previous work, in favour of a provocative and extremely intense character study -- a trait never normally associated with the director. The mise-en-scene of the film is very naturalistic, Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography strongly capturing the flavour of the Italian cities which serve as an external backdrop to the internal psychological transformations of it's tormented protagonist -- but it is also punctuated with jarringly ostentatious CGI effects that seem to consciously draw attention to their own artificiality. "The Stendhal Syndrome" is still one of the director's most suggestive, yet frustratingly opaque movies -- and this latest, near definitive DVD release seems like a good opportunity for a reappraisal.

The character at the centre of the film is Assistant Inspector Anna Manni (Asia Argento). Accompanied by Ennio Morricone's haunting theme, we meet Anna in a curious opening sequence which depicts her on a visit to Florence's prestigious Uffizi Gallery. Anna has been sent to Florence on the trail of a vicious serial rapist and killer, and is acting on a tip-off that he can be found at the Gallery. However, she suffers an intense reaction to the works of art she encounters: they overcome her and cause her to faint and knock her head, which in turn, leaves her suffering from amnesia. She recovers and finds her way back to her hotel but is then cornered and viciously raped by the serial rapist/killer Alfredo Grossi (Thomas Kretschmann) -- the man she had been sent to the City to hunt! After the attack, she is kidnapped and wakes up to witness the murder of another of Alfredo's unfortunate victims. She escapes and, after going back to Rome, is advised by her Psychiatrist Dr. Cavanna to take time off work and visit her estranged father in her home town of Viterbo. Cavanna judges the strange symptoms she experienced at the gallery as being attributable to the Stendhal Syndrome: a malady first identified in 1817 by the French writer Stendhal, as an extreme emotional reaction to great works of art leading to feelings of anxiety, hallucinations and personality changes.

Now living with her father in the quite town of Viterbo, the emotionally fragile Anna is forced to confront the familiar issues her job had previously enabled her to evade: the loss of her mother at a young age and her detachment from her emotionally distant father. She cuts her hair short, takes on a boyish appearance, and starts painting as a method of exploring her feelings. But, before long, another murder takes place, this time in Viterbo. The killer is pursuing an obsession with Anna and has evidently followed her there! Eventually, he kidnaps her again and forces her to undergo a hideous ordeal of multiple rape in his hide-out before she finally escapes and apparently kills him by pushing his unconscious body over a steep waterfall. Now, apparently having overcome her Stendhal Syndrome, Anna becomes obsessed with art, and once again, radically changes her appearance. She wears a long blonde wig and pretends to be a law student when she meets a French man called Marie with whom she starts a relationship. But, although everyone believes him dead, Alfredo Grossi's body was never found, and Anna becomes convinced he is still alive and about to threaten the new life she has created.

The first thing that struck me the very first time I saw "The Stendhal Syndrome" was just how good an actress Asia Argento is capable of being. Her performances often seem to get overshadowed by her rather extreme off-screen persona, but here she is brilliant in a role that would challenge the skills of any actress. Even in the English language version, where Asia's voice has been replaced by another actress, her performance is still credible. It's a good job, because the whole film revolves around her character & the physical and psychological transformations she goes through as the film progresses. Plus, Asia has to act in several harrowing rape scenes which, although not at all explicit, are incredibly powerful and hard to watch, thanks, chiefly to the performances of both she and her co-star, Thomas Kretschmann. It is these two, in fact, who have to carry the weight of the film's dark logic where artistic expression = madness, since it is the perverse tragedy of their characters' relationship which forms the basis of Argento's pessimistic allegory -- despite the fact that Kretschmann disappears halfway through the film!

Since almost everything is seen from Anna's changing perspective, including Kreschmann's terrifying psycho-rapist-killer Alfredo, most of the other characters in the piece are somewhat marginalised in order to emphasis her increasing distance from them. The older males, such as Anna's boss, Chief Inspector Manetti (played by Luigi Diberti) and the psychiatrist, Dr. Cavanna (Paolo Bonnacelli) are portrayed as gentle, surrogate father-figures acting as stand-ins for the real one who remains stiff and withdrawn, unable to help Anna confront what is happening to her. The two young male characters are deliberately bland creations: Marco (Marco Leonardi), Anna's colleague and boyfriend, is a typically macho but unreflective male who is cast aside by Anna as her personality becomes more aggressive after her first attack. In the last third of the film, Anna changes her appearance once again, emphasising her femininity so much that she becomes more an idealised fantasy female than a real one. Marie (Julien Lambroschini), an art historian, becomes the lover of this "transformed" Anna: a softer, more cerebral character than Marco (because he is French, his name can be either a male or a female one -- something that is mentioned frequently in the dialogue), his more feminine characteristics are meant to alert us to the split personality of Anna, who's softer appearance turns out to be a cover for her newly developed 'masculine', predatory inclinations.

Although the film is not noted for the opulent visual style and showy technique of Argento films from the seventies and eighties, it does actually have a very unique look that is at first obscured by it's naturalistic cinematography (not to mention the dark and faded prints used on previous DVD versions). Argento's new-found concern with exploring the inner life of his main protagonist manifests it's self in the way that comes most naturally to him: through striking visuals. This time Argento experimented with, the then, quite primitive CGI technology in order to subjectively represent Anna's hallucinogenic reveries and heightened perceptions. The director's dabbling with CGI has proved to be an audacious, but also a very controversial development in his career. He used it again in "Phantom of the Opera" and many people hated the obtrusiveness and incongruity of it. Personally, I liked it, and for the most part, I think it also works in "The Stendhal Syndrome" too. It is true that Argento's CGI effects in this film often stick out like a sore thumb; but I believe that, with one possible exception, this is a deliberate move.

The CGI effects are used as an indicator of the breech that occurs in Anna's sense of reality and identity when she is in the process of suffering an attack of the syndrome. They represent the slide into psychosis, so their artificiality is not really a drawback; admittedly, if done today on a bigger budget (something Argento is not likely to get unless the Hollywood remake of "Suspiria" is a huge hit) they could have looked far more spectacular -- but those used in the film serve their purpose adequately. It's worth noticing that while the moments that represent a transitional stage between reality and fantasy are shot with the utilisation of computer effects, Anna's hallucinations themselves are shot to look more realistic: after "entering" the Bruegel painting in the opening scene at the Ufizi Gallery, Anna hallucinates a creepy kiss with a giant fish (to my perverted gaze this scene looks like a giant penis about to swallow Asia's head!). Argento shoots it without CGI, using a model fish instead. A later scene -- when a "graffiti" monster painted on the wall of Alfredo's hideout comes to life -- is also shot without CGI. By the time we get to this scene, Anna has suffered multiple rapes at the hands of her captor and has suffered considerable trauma as a result. Alfredo's graffiti covered hideout (painted by Alfredo himself?) can be seen as a representation of the killer's damaged consciousness and the "realistic" look of Anna's hallucination shows us that she now inhabits the same twisted psyche as her tormentor.

There are many other places where Argento uses outrageous CGI effects. The one moment where I feel the director slips up is when he uses it to show us a point-of-view shot of Anna swallowing some sleeping pills. I suppose I could argue that sleeping pills represent a transition from reality (as represented by the waking world) to the unreality of the dream-world ... but even I think this would be stretching a point just a little too far! In any case, besides the fact that it's not obvious what Argento's intentions were here, the effect just stands out and looks false in a way that doesn't add anything to the film. Maybe Argento thought that, since just about every film he'd ever made up to this point had featured an outrageous or impossible point-of-view shot at some point, this one might as well have one too!

The other controversial CGI effect comes in a scene where Anna wakes up after having been kidnapped and raped by Alfredo, only to witness the murder of another woman he has picked up. Alfredo's method of killing his victims is to put a gun to the side of their face and fire straight through it -- so Argento shows us this from Anna's point of view, and uses CGI to achieve the effect. Many people have criticised this decision since it looks decidedly unrealistic and detracts from what should be the horror of the situation. But to me, this is an important moment in the film where a link between the effect of works of art on Anna, due to the Stendhal Syndrome, and the trauma of her ordeal at the hands of Alfredo, is established. This is why we see the murder from Anna's point of view, from the same perspective of exaggerated unreality (created through the use of CGI) as is used to depict her reaction to art. Alfredo turns out to be an art lover; which is why he becomes especially interested in Anna when he witness's her extreme reaction at the Gallery. Later on we find out that, besides stealing a trinket from her hotel room, Alfredo collects art with a view to what effect it would have on Anna, and it appears he commits his crimes for the same reason! He is a misogynist who wants to undermine her and crush her identity -- and mark her forever with the ordeal he puts her through in just the same way as the Stendhal Syndrome does.

The fact that the film its self is also a piece of art, whose maker presumably seeks to "mark" his audience, adds another layer of self-reflexivity. Argento has often created plot-lines and characters in his films who can easily be seen to represent himself or to comment on his own work: Peter Neil, the giallo author protagonist of "Tenebre" or Mark, the horror movie turned Opera director in "Opera" for instance. But in "The Stendhal Syndrome" something even more subtly self-referencing is going on; the film often seems to be commenting on its self as it proceeds and drawing attention to it's own status as a piece of cinematic art. The mechanism Argento deploys is to have Anna literally step into the paintings that affect her the most, which also tend to reference the film they are appearing in! These scenes are often highly reminiscent of the way characters enter mirrors in the French artist, poet and filmmaker, Jean Cocteau's "Orphic Trilogy" of films; where the mirror represents, and gives access to, the poet's artistic imagination. In Argento's film, the paintings act as mirrors whose primary function is to reveal certain aspects of Anna's psychological make-up, but which also have a secondary function of drawing the audience's attention to an ironic relationship between the subject matter of the film and the artistic imagination behind it.

When Anna enters a Rembrandt painting, and steps into a key incident from her recent past, it represents the fact that she is regaining her memory after suffering a bout of amnesia at the art gallery, while also furnishing the audience with information that develops the plot and explains the previous events for us. The first painting Anna enters: Bruegel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", turns out to be a veiled early reference to Anna overreaching her powers: we learn, much later into the film, that she had gone to the gallery in search of Alfredo without calling for any back-up because she wanted to make the arrest herself. A scene in the police station, where Anna enters a picture of caves under a waterfall, actually foreshadows the pivotal point, two-thirds into the film, when Anna is kept prisoner in Alfredo's cavernous hide-out, also positioned near a waterfall. When Anna starts creating her own paintings there is a scene where she covers herself in paint and rolls around on a paint-splattered canvas, which suggests that her relationship with art is beginning to cause the unravelling of her identity. But the scene is composed by Argento as if it were also a painting: there is a bed in the room with a blanket over it that is designed with almost the same combination of blended colours as the canvas with which the paint-covered Anna is trying to blend, and our attention becomes drawn to the fact that Anna is herself an artistic creation -- sculpted by the imagination of an artist who seems profoundly equivocal about his own power to create, influence and transform, but addicted and defined by the process non-the-less.

There have been many incarnations of "The Stendhal Syndrome" on DVD in the past, and nearly all of them have done the film a gross disservice. The initial UK DVD was pan & scanned and censored, while both the region 1 release from Troma and the Dutch release by Dutch Film Works suffered from horrible transfers which virtually bleached out all the colour. Although I haven't seen the French release, from what I've heard this new Italian disc from Medusa is the best version so far. It's not up to the standard of Anchor Bay's "Opera" and "Suspiria" discs which are reference quality (at least in terms of their transfers) but it does finally allow us to see the film the way it was meant to be seen. It turns out that despite it's naturalism, "Stendhal..." is actually quite a colourful film! The anamorphic image on the Medusa disc is sharper and much more vibrant than any other version and certain scenes in the film now really stand out as being among Argento's best set-pieces, whereas previously they seemed quite murky and unremarkable. There is, however, a fine sheen of grain visible over the image that occasionally pops up throughout the movie, but it is never so bad as to be a major irritation -- it just means that this doesn't quite stand up there with the very best Argento discs on the market. Although the film is listed as including a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, it is in fact 1.78:1; in other words it is cropped to fill the screen of a standard widescreen TV. The Dutch Film Works DVD gave us a 1.66:1 non-anamorphic aspect ratio, but this did seem to have a lot of dead space at the top and bottom of the screen, and may not even have been the film's actual theatrical ratio. The framing on this Italian disc looks fine, and the small amount of missing information does not compromise the composition of the image at all. In fact, to my eye, it often looks better than the 1.66:1 framing, although I appreciate that this is a matter of opinion. There is a curious instance about twenty-five minutes in though, where the picture does seem to be excessively zoomed. This is revealed by the fact that a title that appears in this scene seems to be almost off the bottom of the screen. On the Dutch disc (1.66:1 aspect ratio), there is about an inch between the title and the bottom of the screen while a 1.78:1 ratio should still leave a small gap (as do all the other titles that appear in the film) so it would appear that more has been cropped off in this one scene than should have been! This mistake aside, the disc is a revelation and I can honestly say that the film has risen considerably in my estimation as a direct result of it.

The two-disc set is divided between the Italian language cut on the first disc and the English language version on disc two. They are both equal in quality in terms of their transfers and both versions include Dolby 5.1 Surround sound mixes of their respective audio tracks, with English and Italian sub title options. The Italian cut also includes a Stereo 2.0 audio option.

The English language version is the same cut that has appeared on previous DVD versions with Asia's voice dubbed by an American actress who almost sabotages the film with her unsympathetic performance. Although most of the cast performed in English on the set, all of the audio tracks, including the English one, were created afterwards, which is why Asia's recorded voice came to be replaced in the English version (much to the actress's disgust) so it is the Italian one that feels most authentic: Anna is the centre of the film and to have Asia's voice giving the performance is essential.

The Italian cut is also slightly longer, although only by one minute and fifteen seconds! It is hard to see why these two short scenes were ever cut from the English language version -- they are only dialogue scenes, one involves Anna talking to the husband of one of Alfredo's victims on the phone and the other, her talking to Marie's mother at the airport -- but at least now we have them restored!

All the extras are located on the English language disc, but unfortunately there are no English sub titles for these, only Italian ones. We have two short interviews, one with Asia that clocks in at just under five minutes, and another with Dario at just under six minutes. The main extra is a half-hour "making of "documentary filmed entirely on set and filled with interviews with the cast as well as Dario and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno. All of this is pretty much incomprehensible unless you speak or read Italian but there is a lot of behind the scenes footage that is bound to be of interest to any Argento fan.

There was a time when "The Stendhal Syndrome" was considered by most to be one of Argento's lesser movies. I've always liked it, and with every viewing it seems to get better. This new disc has now catapulted it into my top 5 Argento films, as we can now finally see it properly, the way it's director intended. intellectually and emotionally the film is a draining experience for the audience but it is definitely the best thing Argento has done since "Opera", and is one of his most challenging movies, standing up to the kind of heavyweight critical scrutiny Argento films tend to provoke, better than most of his others! It may not contain the baroque aesthetics we love to see from the director, but it is an equally compelling and original vision and represents a major development in Argento's film making career that he has, as yet, chosen not to follow up and expand upon with subsequent movies. It certainly offers a more rewarding direction than simply recapitulating seventies gialli motifs indefinitely, and it will be interesting to see how Argento's latest ("IL Cartaio") measures up, since this was originally meant to feature the Anna Manni character once more when it first started life, until Asia Argento pulled out. As ever, we wait with bated breath!