Towards the begining of the movie, we are intoduced to Anna, our amnesiac. She makes her way into a museum and roams around. As she traverses from room to room, she hears murmurs and whispers from the paintings. Horses hooves clopping against the ground. Drummers tapping on snares. And as she reaches beach scene painting she falls in. Drowning, she is saved by a manfish breathing life back into her lungs. She wakes, lip bloody on the museum floor. A man asks if shes ok. She flees in fright and embarassment.
On the street he catches up to her and gives her her bag. She digs through it to find something to tell her who she is and where she is. A hotel key. She returns to her room to find out something about herself. Anna.... her name is Anna. The painting in her room is whispering to her. She frantically covers it, trying to muffle the sound. She pulls the towel away and looks into the painting. Now its a door. She steps through to find a crime scene. Shes a cop. She is investigating a string of rapes that have now turned into murders. She is supposed to go to Florence and investigate the similar cases there.
She steps back through the door into her room and is attacked by the man from the museum. The rapist. Armed with the gun from her purse back at the museum, he gains the upper hand and rapes her. She passes out from the pain and comes to as he is raping another woman. He fires a round through the womans cheek and then another into her skull. Anna escapes the car and runs away.
Safe at the police station, they run a rape kit and begin her therapy. She is diagnosed with Stendhal Syndrome, severe emotional shifts, hallucinations, and personality changes triggered by art..... and thats where anything that pertains to Stendhal Syndrome ends. The movie builds up all this stuff and goes nowhere with it. Amnesia? Why? You never find out. Just 'cause. Stendhal? Never heard of it.
The movie goes off and becomes more of a rape revenge movie, we see her cut her hair, toughen up, even start showing odd signs of hatred and violence towards men. At one point she goes so far as to nearly rape her boyfriend for simply trying to care and comfort her. We can tell where this is going. Whats going to happen. But we watch.
After focusing on her losing it for a bit, Anna receives a call from our rapist. Anna, being the grand officer that she is, fails to notice that the call is being made by the man standing 5 feet behind her. He clocks her, knocking her out.
She wakes in a water treatment plant tied to a mattress. She struggles in vain, as she is raped a second time. He leaves her tied there as he goes to "take care of some business". He comes back to find her still on the mattress, he crawls toward her, she wakes. She stabs him in the neck with the springs that were wrapped around her wrists. They struggle and fight. She gouges out his eye. He grabs her gun and starts firing randomly. She wrestles the gun from him and shoots him in the stomach. Out of ammunition, she knocks him to the ground and breaks his neck with the butt of the gun. She drags him outside and then dumps his battered body in the river.
And that's it. We all knew she was going to go crazy and become a man killer, so why the segment on her falling in love and trying to be normal again? Why take out all the steam built up by her rape-revenge part, toughening up, cracking, only to make it dull, drawn out, and come to a predicted conclusion? Had that part been cut from the movie, it would have been ok. It would have been entertaining. As is, The Stendhal Syndrome is a crazy mish mash of ideas that are built up and then thrown away....
Also, there is a three armed monster with a giant erect penis in the water plant.
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