The Stendhal Syndrome (La sindrome di Stendhal)

A psychological thriller with roots in the giallo tradition, The Stendhal Syndrome was made in Italy in 1996 by Dario Argento, under the Italian title La Sindrome di Stendhal. When it opened there on 26 January 1996, critics and audiences both embraced it, and it took in roughly 5.4 billion lire. The title names the condition that sends people into a trance before works of art; the film draws on psychiatrist Graziella Magherini's book on it.

Argento's daughter Asia Argento stars. Anna Manni, a police detective working in Florence, is tracking Alfredo Grossi (Thomas Kretschmann), a serial killer who rapes and murders women. Standing before a painting in the Uffizi, she succumbs to Stendhal syndrome and falls into his hands. After surviving, her identity is shaken and the line between hunter and prey blurs. Marco Leonardi, Paolo Bonacelli and Luigi Diberti also appear. Unlike earlier Argento gialli, the killer's identity is known from the start, so the emphasis falls on psychological horror.

Argento wrote the script with Franco Ferrini, and Ennio Morricone composed the music. Argento says he fell into a similar trance as a child at the Parthenon. Anna was first meant for Bridget Fonda and then Jennifer Jason Leigh. It is the first Italian film to use computer-generated imagery, and it quotes artists from Bosch to Caravaggio and Magritte.