The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) on Netflix
NR19961h 59mHorrorMysteryThriller
Detective Anna Manni travels from Rome to Florence to track a serial rapist and killer. Paintings overwhelm Anna, who has Stendhal syndrome. The killer learns of her condition.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.0/1010,068 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
Anna Manni is a police detective in Rome, sent by Inspector Manetti to Florence to pursue Alfredo Grossi, a serial rapist and murderer. The assignment includes working out why three of his victims in Florence were left alive. Anna has Stendhal syndrome, a psychosomatic disorder that brings dizziness and hallucinations when she looks at paintings and other artistic masterpieces. In a museum in Florence the art overcomes her. Alfredo learns of her condition and uses it against her, luring her into a trap inside the Uffizi museum. Her colleague Marco Longhi and his team keep her under their protection, and she has sessions with the psychiatrist Dr. Cavanna.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Bridget Fonda was set to play Detective Anna Manni but dropped out before production began, and Jennifer Jason Leigh was considered as a replacement before Dario Argento cast his own daughter, Asia Argento, in the role.
- The film's opening scene was shot inside Florence's Uffizi Gallery, and Dario Argento is the only director ever granted permission to film there.
- Dario Argento said he experienced Stendhal syndrome as a child: while touring Athens with his parents he was climbing the steps of the Parthenon when a trance left him lost from them for hours.
- The grouper Anna kisses in the underwater footage was a remote model pulled through the sea by cables attached to a small float on the surface, and it stopped working moments after the shoot wrapped.
- For the UK release, the distributor made eleven cuts totalling 2 minutes 47 seconds to rape scenes, violence and dialogue before submitting to the BBFC, and the uncut version was withdrawn because it had never been classified.
- Thomas Kretschmann was cast as Alfredo Grossi because he had worked with Asia Argento on La Reine Margot (1994) and she recommended him to her father, Dario Argento.
- The film was the last fiction feature for cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, who shot a documentary on Marcello Mastroianni the following year before retiring.
