The Stendhal Syndrome | La sindrome di Stendhal (1996) {Uncut Version} [18+]Directed by Dario Argento
AVI, XviD, 608x384, 1176 kbps | MP3, 128 kbps, 2 Ch | 01:59:29
Country: Italy | Language: English | | Subtitles: English | Genre: Crime, Thriller, Horror
The first half of Dario Argento's heady psycho-thriller is a mesmerizing merging of dream and reality. A beautiful young Italian detective (Asia Argento, who does little to convince us she's a tough, seasoned cop) investigating a serial rapist is suddenly overwhelmed when
the paintings in an art museum erupt with life. According to
the film, this is "
the Stendhal Syndrome," an intense and overwhelming response to art that turns
the viewer mad. As Anna steps in and out of fantasy worlds like Alice through
the looking glass, she's kidnapped by her quarry, who repeatedly rapes and tortures her in a dark, dank underground cave.
The delirious nightmare of shattered reality becomes a sadistic, mean-spirited spectacle of murder and degradation--perpetrated on, of all
people,
the director's own bound and beaten daughter!--and
the thriller disintegrates into a paranoid mystery of amnesia, split psyches, and shadowy phantoms. At its best this is a mesmerizing vision of madness: paintings melt into
the real world while objectivity disintegrates before our eyes. But before
the unexpectedly sensitive conclusion, Argento puts
the viewer through a bravura but brutal series of gory murders (a slow-motion bullet passes through both cheeks of a helpless victim, and ano
ther shooting is viewed from inside
the body) and unsavory violence. ~ Sean Axmaker