Eyes Without a Face [Les Yeux sans Visage] (1960)
A compelling and brilliant combination of French art film and shock horror…the movie is surely a benchmark in horror film making. What puts
Eyes without a face into the level of a masterpiece is through the passion the story been portrayed, the performances, direction, photography, lightings - all bond together and create a world where fragile & lyrical beauty is periodically shattered by clinical horror; where a family of three is desperately struggling to restore the ‘beauty & freshness’ of life through unbearable pains & crimes. They are fighting with the inner guilt of their true nature & hopes by hiding their faces through seen & unseen masks.
Can we fully label
Doctor Genessier as a monster or completely mad scientist?…besides his hideous schemes we also see him as a caring doctor attentively treating a young boy at the hospital and performing his duty seriously. It was all about how far people can go to protect, help or to do anything for their love ones when they are suffering every moment in the guilt of ruining their lives by their own hands.
Sometimes a movie opens with a shivering moment so perfect that you just know that no matter what happens, there is going to more sinister things waiting for you next. But this is a film that gives you more than that. The most famous sequence is the skin graft operation, which is handled in a single, uninterrupted shot. The imagery...a face literally being dissected from a head...is guaranteed to send even modern audiences into disgust, squirming and preventing their eyes from the screen.
This is my first Georges Franju film and I’m totally amazed by his beautiful unique sense of art - nowhere more evident than in the final shot of the film when Christiane wandering free through the night, her mask discarded but her face seen only by the dogs at her feet and the dove on her shoulder – a poetic finale of a landmark of Horror.
I’m truly glad that I didn’t go for any online viewing or a pirated dvd copy for this rather than bought the original criterion dvd from e-bay which includes some excellent features..specially Franju’s
Blood of the Beasts, a documentary short about the brutal methods Paris slaughterhouses used to butcher meat…a truly breath taking & unforgettable experience!
>>: A+