Product: La Sindrome di Stendhal
Rating: 1.0
Latter day film from Italian master deserves better release
Stylish Italian horror master Dario Argento's well regarded latter day effort, distinguished by the fine acting of his daughter, Asia Argento, in the lead role of a cop in an Italian anti-rape unit who falls prey not only to a vicious attack by a psychopath, but also to the title syndrome, an affliction which causes its victims to literally lose themselves in works of art.The one star rating is not for the film itself, however, but for the quality of this VHS release.Unfortunately, this new VHS version is not only pan and scan, but worse yet, it's in the slow speed EP mode, which produces noticably poor picture tracking, video noise, and very poor color reproduction. A director as visually brilliant as Argento deserves better treatment for his films--a high quality SP letterbox release would serve this film better.Incidently, this film *was* originally released in SP mode--this is the higher priced verson listed elsewhere on Amazon as a special order. Neither version is letterboxed--only the DVD is--but both VHS releases are at least uncut, and the more expensive *other* VHS version is at least in a decent quality SP mode, unlike this one.