The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

Detective Anna Manni travels to Florence on the trail of a serial rapist and murderer, Alfredo Grossi. While visiting a museum, Anna is overcome by Stendhal syndrome, a condition which causes the sufferer to become overwhelmed when viewing great works of art. When Alfredo learns of Anna’s disorder, he uses it to disable her before he kidnaps her and subjects her to a brutal and sadistic sexual attack. Although she manages to escape, Anna is left deeply traumatized. Alfredo continues to track her movements and is able to capture her again. This time, however, Anna turns the tables on her abductor, breaking free of his grasp, badly wounding him in the process, and knocking him into a river.

While the police, believing Alfredo to be dead, search the river for his body, Anna meets and soon falls in love with Marie, a young French art student. Anna also takes sessions with a psychologist in an effort to come to terms with her own deep-seated emotional trauma. That trauma is intensified when Anna begins to receive phone calls from the supposedly-dead Alfredo. When Marie is found murdered, Anna’s psychologist, concerned about her mental state, visits her at home. While he is there, a colleague of Anna’s, Marco, calls to notify her that Alfredo’s body has in fact been found. This leads to the psychologist realizing the truth, and he confronts Anna with the reality that she herself is Marie’s murderer. Marco arrives at Anna’s apartment, only to find that she has killed her psychologist as well. As he attempts to take Anna’s gun from her, she confesses that Alfredo is now inside her, ordering her to do terrible things, whereupon she murders Marco. The police arrive on the scene and ultimately arrest her after she wanders the streets.