On a visit to the famous Uffizi Museum in Florence, Anna is seized with a symptom of unease when she is confronted with Brueghel's painting, "The Flight of Icarus."
The symptomatology, dubbed the "Stendhal syndrome" because the famous author was the first to describe its effects, seizes young Anna at various times whenever she comes across an artistic work.
In reality, Anna is a policewoman transferred from Rome to Florence, on the trail of a sadistic rapist who, moving from acts of rape carried out in the capital, in Florence went so far as to commit a crime (again sexually motivated).
When the killer, after kidnapping her, rapes her, for Anna the already fragile psychological balance gives way to a "distorted" reality, where her personality undergoes a schizophrenic alteration.
Argento directs, with his usual technical expertise, a film with a rather fascinating plot, although on the whole brought to the screen weakly, due to the portrayal of the actors (in particular Asia, in her early twenties, is not at all believable in the role of the Inspector) and to some dialogue bordering on unintentional hilarity.
Although the ingenious touch can be found in some truly successful sequences, the author often retraces the path of self-quotation (the bullet piercing a victim's cheeks, from whose hole the killer looks at Anna, captive and bound, seems an obvious reference to Opera)...
Good final characterization of Asia, who really seems to have "doubled" into another personality....
It should be noted that the soundtrack, by the great Ennio Morricone, is average for Argentine productions of the last period.
A film somewhere between the best Silver (Tenebre) and the worst (Il Fantasma dell'Opera) with all the pros and cons that this evidently entails.
Violent scenes, however, appear to be contained in the level of gore (perhaps with a view to TV passage), although the murder of the killer, barbarically slaughtered by Anna, is truly disturbing.
Short performances by Franco Diogenes (as the -abundant- husband of a victim) and Cinzia Monreale (the killer's wife), two icons of the best Italian genre cinema...
Only Argento film in Loyd Kaufman's Troma catalog (as The Stendhal Syndrome), so you're on notice.
Review by Undying1
