The Criterion Chronicles - Eyes Without A Face

This is an ongoing series in which I chronicle the films of the Criterion Collection that I watch. I will include a brief synopsis and my thoughts. I usually watch these films on Hulu Plus' Criterion Channel..... I am currently paid by neither..

George Franju's "Eyes Without A Face" (1960) is about a genius plastic surgeon, Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) who, with the help of his assistant Louise (Alidia Valli) abducts young pretty girls, cuts off their faces and grafts them onto his cherished daughter's face. His daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob) has been in hiding and is thought dead since the accident that left her disfigured. As the operations fail one after another, Christiane spins deeper and deeper into guilty depression as her Father becomes more and more obsessed with successful procedure.

This is not my first experience with this film but I wanted to rewatch it this week because Criterion has just

announced its Blu-Ray release and new high definition transfer in October of this year. I remember liking this film before but I was completely floored with it this time around. This film does an amazing jobs at lulling you into thinking that it will be handling its more disturbing and gory aspects with kid gloves. This is eventually found out to not be true. Then it blasts you in the face with its practical effects. I was honestly taken aback by how gruesome the visuals were for a film that was made over half a century ago. 

But I feel the gore factor really takes a backseat to the creepy factor in this flick hands down. As well done as the makeup job is in the various women, sans-face shots, the mask that Christiane wears in between operations just wigged me the hell out. There's just something about a slightly off humanistic mask that looks absolutely disturbing. It's the perfect amount of recognizability combined with the complete lack of relatability. Coincidentally, I recently watched an episode of Vsauce, a science based web series, about the creepy phenomenon. Check it out, it's really good...

I was reminded of this picture a couple of years ago when Pedro Almodovar's brilliant film "The Skin I Live In" was released. At the time, I remembered it being somewhat similar but I was surprised at how many

similarities I noticed this time around. The subject matter is close, a brilliant doctor obsessed with his daughter committing unspeakable crimes. There's also the presence of the brick and mortar underground lair that the doctor hides away in after hours. I'm a big fan of post-modern filmmaking and I love to experience the great art that inspires other great art.

It's also worth mentioning the year that this film came out, 1960. This was a pretty great year for ominous and disturbing cinema. Alfred Hitchcock proved that he in fact does not have your best interest in mind in the first thirty minutes of his masterpiece "Psycho" and Michael Powell directed the equally off putting voyeuristic thriller "Peeping Tom" in that year. The movie industry does tend to follow trends and its good to keep in mind that this is not a new thing... and it wasn't a new thing in 1960. This would probably make a great Sunday afternoon triple feature... as long as you didn't plan on getting any sleep that night.

Enjoy.