Customer Reviews

Eyes Without a Face [VHS]

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I guess I'm a horror film snob, but I like my "creature features" and ghost stories with a little class. Give me Julie Harris in "The Haunting," or Deborah Kerr "The Innocents," or Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast," or Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby." One of my all-time favorite horror films is this macabre tale of a girl with a tragically disfigured face and her mad-surgeon of a father, obsessed with restoring her beauty - no matter the cost.

Directed by Georges Franju and scripted by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who wrote "Diabolique" and "Vertigo"), "Eyes Without a Face" is one of the most stylish, suspensful and gruesome films I've ever seen. My sister leaves the room during the surgical sequences - really, truly horrific. The performances are excellent throughout. The physician's assistant is played by the wonderful Alida Valli (of "The Third Man" fame). Pierre Brasseur plays the surgeon and Edith Scob is simply haunting in the titular role. The great Maurice Jarre composed the score. Don't miss this one. Play this on Halloween for all your friends who've never heard of it - and then sit back and watch them squirm. Great movie.

"Eyes Without a Face" ("Les Yeux sans visage") is a horror film in which there is certain sympathy with the mad doctor, in this case Doctor Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) who is trying to repair the horrible damage to his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) in a car accident that was his fault. The doctor, helped by his assistant Louise (Alida Valli), has been kidnapping young girls so that he can remove their skin and graft it onto Christiane's ruined face. Not only do the victims die, but the grafts fail, forcing Genessier to try again and again and again. What makes Georges Franju's film work is the inherent sympathy we feel towards the father trying to make his daughter beautiful again, just as we are repulsed by the surgical procedures he uses. Meanwhile, Genessier remains oblivious to what his efforts are doing to Christiane's own tenuous hold on reality.

"Eyes Without a Face" moves back and forth from the sacred and the profane, between the love of a parent for a child and meaningless destruction of human life. Franju conveys this contrast visually through the use of poetic images and realistic scenes. I have read arguments that "Eyes Without a Face" should be considered with "Psycho" as creating the splatter flick, and while it is hard to imagine anything having the impact of Hitchcock's film, Franju's movie is more artistic overall (of course, the shower scene is the master trump when we talk about horror films as "art"). This black & white French film with English subtitles is well worth seeing and could end up on your personal top 10 horror film list.

The "Eyes Without a Face" translation is actually the British title for this 1959 release, which was called "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus" when released in the United States in 1962, in what must be one of the stupidest titles grafted onto a foreign film in cinema history. Here you have a film that walks a fine line between beautiful visual images, such as when Christiane walks through the house in her mask, and viseral horror, represented by not just the operation scenes but the film's climax. The title is simple and elegant, not to mention appropriate to the story being told, and some suit who heard about Christopher Marlowe while reading an E.C. comic comes up with "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus." Mon dieu, mon ami!

When I first saw this film as a young man, those releasing it in the States were obviously trying to cash in on the hard-core horror market so they released it under the unconcionable title "Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus." This is probably why I laid my $.25 down and walked in to see it. I had a pentient for trashy horror flicks that I don't seem to have entirely outgrown. Anyway...it was obvious even to me that this was a cut above what I was used to seeing. Yes, there were some graphic scenes that would make most peoples' skin crawl, but it was more than that. As I was able to see it again some 40 or so years later I realized why. This movie gets under your skin with haunting imagery and sadness. The story, about a doctor who uses his assistant to kidnap young woumen so he can remove the skin from their faces in order to restore the face of his own daughter, actually started a small sub-genre in horror films. This is by far the best I've seen. The black and white cinematography is beautiful. Few films use light and shadow to the effect they are seen here. And when the daughter is first seen with her featureless, white mask it is one of the creepiest and saddest moments in film. These aren't shallow, evil people we're witnessing here. These are people driven by guilt and dedication, carrying out acts that make sense to them in their circumstances. The mechanics of the plot, particularly those involving the police, are somewhat pedestrian, but there is more than enough here to overcome the minor shortcomings. When the viewer reaches the end of the film, to see the shot of the daughter outside her house on a windswept night, few moments in cinema ever reach the same degree of power, horror and poetry as those caught here.

This film was a pleasant surprise for me because I had never heard of it until the Criterion dvd release. The grisly storyline is subdued by brilliant black and white cinematography and an evocative mood which is maintained throughout the entire film. Granted, the operation scene is not for the faint of heart, but the images that resonated with me were the young girls eyes behind that eerie mask as she wanders through the big country house and Allida Valli's menacing black raincoat flickering in the night.

In addition to the excellent production values, the acting is impressive. Christiane Genessier, as the young Edith, who wears a mask in every scene except one, manages to convey her character with body language and her haunting eyes. Alida Valli as the "woman in the pearl choker" (and there is a reason for that choker!) is menacing and creepy as the doctor's assistant.

As usual, Criterion's restoration efforts are impressive. The film is flawless and looks fantastic.

I wasn't as impressed with the short documentary that comes with the dvd which graphically depicts animals (horses, cows, sheep) being killed in French slaughterhouses. If you are an animal lover, I would advise you not to watch it. I didn't make it past the first scene and should have known better to not have played it in the first place. Despite Criterion's assessment that it was "lyrical," I beg to differ!

In the book jacket of the criterion dvd producer Jules Borkon told director Georges Franju that in the film there would need to be blood. But not too much blood because of French censors, also no animal torture because it upsets the British, and no mad scientists, since the Germans are touchy about the whole Nazi doctor thing.
As Borkon handed Franju a script about a mad doctor that tortures animals while cutting off women's faces. Sound like a challenge?

Luckily this inspired Franju to step his game up to transcend what might have been a B horror movie into a masterpiece. Franju was also in good company on the film with the writing team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac who were also the writing team that assisted Hitchcock on Vertigo and Clouzot on Diabolique. Cinematographer Eugen Schufftan to make Franjus vision of realism come to life, Schufftan who had also worked with Fritz Lang and Edgar Ulmer.

Eyes without a face is the story of a Dr. Génessier who is indeed a mad doctor but is not screaming It's Alive, It's Alive like Dr. Frankenstein. On the contrary unlike Dr. Frankenstein he isn't giving life but unknowingly taking his patient's life away. That patient is Christiane Génessie his own daughter whose face was left mangled after a car accident in which her father, as she states was driving insane as he always did.

Dr. Genessie now removes women's faces to transplant to his daughters so she can come from behind a eerie mask she is encouraged to wear. He does this with the help of Louise his assistant who is loyal to the Dr. for giving back her own face through surgery.

Patrick McGrath an author who did a write up on the Criterion case jacket states that the Dr. is not motivated by love but by guilt in creating these horrible acts. I personally did not see that, but a man who had lost his sole and was obsessed with the work itself, after thinking he finally made his daughters face perfect again he stated you can't put a price on that. Christiane herself told Louise that she is a godsend to him to have as a guinea pig as she pleaded for her to kill her. However the Dr. does show moments of being human when he helps a boy, this apparently is what angered our American censors who didn't mind the blood and carnage but giving the Dr. compassion was inexcusable and was one of the cuts made to the film originally.

The film as a horror movie is filed with dread, when a girl is lured back to the house of the Dr. and realizes she made a mistake I could see a lot of our torture films being influenced here like Hostel II for example. However Eyes without a face has motive and plot. And even for 1959 there are moments that make you squirm as the first realistic documentary style face removal, and after his daughter's successful face transplant goes wrong showing photos of her face's deterioration after different amounts of time elapse.

The film is also filled with metaphors and makes you think. For example if this surgery were for the good but horrible acts to a few had to happen in order to benefit many is that alright? Sounds a bit familiar.

Is Christiane's plastic mask symbolic for the masks people are encouraged to put on each day?

Perhaps it symbolizes the mask the director Franju was encouraged to put on this film and the struggle it must have been to rise above it as Christiane must rise up against the evil in her father.

Are parents that try to sculpt and mold their children into what they want because they think it's best are they stopping that child from really living?

I could go on and on, this is a great horror film and great film for any genre. As his film suggests beauty is only skin deep but directors like Franju show how deep a genre hated by many critics such as horror can go.

SPECIAL FEATURES
- New Restored HD transfer (looked pristine
-Blood of the Beasts, Franju's 1949 short doc about the slaughterhouses of Paris
-Archival interviews w/ Franjo on horror, cinema, and the making of blood of the beasts
-Excert from les grands peres du crime, a doc features eyes without a faces writers Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (Diabolique, Vertigo)
-Theatrical Trailers
-Stills gallery of rare production photos and promo material
-New essays by novelist Patrick McGrath and writer and film historian David Kalat (which i refer to throughout the review)

I had never seen this film before and thought I would try it solely based on the customer reviews and AMAZON.com recommendations. I was not disappointed. This is a truly striking film. The movie is French with English subtitles which in no way detracts from its enjoyment for English-speaking viewers. The film is about a guilt-ridden plastic surgeon seeking suitable skin grafts for his horribly disfigured daughter. The daughter's disfigurement was due to an automobile accident that was the fault of her surgeon-father. The "doners" for the skin grafts are unsuspecting, attractive young women. I will leave you, the reader, to take it from there. The acting is superb. The photography is crisp black and white and is rather "artful" in a way. I am not the biggest fan of foreign horror films but this one is good and easy to follow. As far as the quality of the video itself, it is excellent. I obtained the new release from Kino Video and I have no complaints. The video was struck from an excellent quality print with only very minor and very infrequent "speckles of age". The videotape is quality superb and well worth the price.

In a French chateau, a famed plastic surgeon tries valiantly time after time to restore his disfigured daughter's face...driven by guilt since he was responsible for the accident that caused it. Georges Franju's 1959 Gothic shocker still retains the power to disturb unlike other similarly themed horror films. It is grislier than others of the period and stunningly photographed in b&w with haunting images (like the mask) that linger with you for days afterward. The surgeon (Pierre Brasseur) and his assistant (Alida Valli) are obsessively devoted to the daughter (Edith Scob) and don't take into account her personal feelings. Young women are lured to the estate, drugged and used for skin grafts as the daughter stands by helplessly, hoping for a new face. A dreamlike quality to the film makes it all the more disturbing and unforgettable. A collector's find without a doubt and a keeper.

This startling work combines the plot of a splatter movie with the cold, composed style of 1950's Stanley Kubrick. You can sense in it the French appreciation of Poe, Cornell Woolrich, and the Gothic. It has many touches of dark humor and irony that complement the ominous, poetic visual style. Strange moments of anguished emotion keep breaking through the tightly constructed surface of the film. It also anticipates the more graphic horror films to come in the future. The famous "operation" scene will make your skin crawl even after 40 years. The real subject is, of course, our fetishization of female beauty, and what that dehumanization really costs. The figure of a ruthless, murderous doctor performing obscene medical experiments also must have had special relevance to a France that had experienced the terrors of German occupation during World War II. Maurice Jarre's music is memorably spooky. You won't soon forget this one.

Georges Franju might be the most underrated director of French cinema history that I know of. His films were marveled at by no less than both Jean Cocteau and Jean Luc-Goddard. As far as *Horror Cinema* goes, "Eyes Without A Face" AKA "Les Yeux Sans Visage" might be the most poetic, eerie film ever lensed. The haunting portrait of Christiane, masked, faceless, and disfigured since an earlier car accident, combined with the obsession of her brilliant father-surgeon, determined to find and graft a 'new' face for her, will leave horrific impressions of intense beauty that will not easily be forgotten. A mixture of fantasy and realism that combines for a movie that far surpasses today's "horror story" standards. Check it out if you're not looking to see a typical 90's "run-of-the-mill" slasher film, AND if you have the patience and understanding to notice the subleties of poetry-in-motion when it surfaces in a genre outside of it's normal influence.

Here is a movie that dares to be different. But not only does it dare to be different it actually contains a sense of logic (at least for these characters) and fully explores the possibilities that could have been sustained within such a story.

The movie is about Christiane (Edith Scob) who was in a car accident with her father which caused her to become disfigured up to the extreme point where her face was destroyed. Now she is reduced to wear a mask as her father, a doctor (Pierre Brasseur) tries to find a way in which he can restore his daughter's looks.

"Eyes Without A Face" was directed by Georges Franju, who has been called "the master of the cinema of the fantastic". Now if by "fantastic" you mean "absurd" I'm totally inclined to agree. The movie seems to borrow a style from several films before it. We can sense a hint of German expressionism and even "The Phantom of the Opera". I wonder if John Woo was inspired by this film when he made "Face\Off"?

One of the best things that can be said for this film is it creates a mood that perfectly matches the story. The film moves at its own pace and allows the viewer to absorb everything that is presented to us. Franju is not out for cheap scares. In fact I wouldn't be so quick as to merely described this movie as a horror film. I think it tries to avoid labels of genre.

If there is a fault to the film, it is the ending. I felt it happens too suddenly. Nothing seems resolved. There is not a sense of closure. I also feel when a movie deals with this type of ending it is a cop out. It is a way for the writer and director to avoid dealing with these characters.

Despite whatever faults I may find in the film I think it is one that will be enjoyed by various audiences. The acting is enjoyable, even if at times it borders on B horror film style acting. It at least remains consistent with what it is doing. This is also an excellent introduction into the work of Georges Franju.

Bottom-line: Consistently challenging film that pushes its story to the limit. It refuses to be defined. It has its own logic and goes with that. Creates a very effective mood but cops out near end. Still worthwhile.