I watched The Stendhal Syndrome, a 1996 Dario Argento film in which Asia Argento plays a young cop trying to catch a rapist/serial killer in Italy while dealing with her own crippling hallucinations whenever she looks at artwork. It was a pretty good psycho thriller, but tough to watch for its graphic depictions of rape and murder of women. I did like how trippy and unnerving the film was, and despite that it came out in the ‘90s, it felt more ‘80s to me with its film quality and old-fashioned loud musical score.
Argento, at twenty years old, seemed way too young to be playing a police investigator, but had an intensity in her eyes that worked for the film’s vibe, especially as she becomes more psychologically tortured by both the killer and the artwork. Thomas Kretschmann, as the rapist-killer, was fantastic in playing such a disturbed and monstrous character with a lot of charisma.
I saw this at The Metrograph, and enjoyed visiting there again to see this weird thriller.
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