Director: Georges Franju
Scenes of surgery sometimes make me squimish, depending on how identifiable the body part is. So eyes and hands are deeply uncomfortable, while internal procedures are more curiosities (despite the greater amount of blood). The surgical scenes of Franju's film, face removal and transplantation, are deeply disquieting, (though for me not sickening). What is even more shocking is the reason for the surgery, and why women keep turning up dead with the skin of their faces missing, with the aloof, almost dispassionate camera enhancing this horror.
Dr Genessier, our surgeon, falls into the category of mad scientist, along with Dr. Frankenstein, but he does not spend the film raging around with furious energy. Instead he is almost preternaturally controlled, only expressing great emotion in the film's last scene. This sense of stillness pervades the film, giving it an uneasy atmosphere. This stillness is presented most horrifyingly in the form of the mask worn by Christiane Genessier; white and impassive, with lips that only slightly move when she speaks, the mask is one of the most frightening things I have ever seen in a film. I remember as a child seeing a painting in an art gallery of two figures with white fabric over their faces. It terrified me, and that same fear came back watching Franju's film.
The motivation for all the face surgery (and transplantation) is not the usual desire for continuing youth, but guilt; a father's guilt over destroying his own child's face. This gives the film a poignancy and even melancholy, particularly from Christiane, who is sick of hiding from the world.
Eyes Without a Face is deeply unsettling, and strangely beautiful, a perfect counterpoint to the tendency of modern horror films to go for big scares without much substance.
I love this movie! I saw it for the first time three years ago. I was in the habit of watching lots of Universal monster movies in October during the run-up to Halloween, but they were getting a little stale after seeing them ten or twenty or thirty times. So I started putting together a new list of Halloween movies that I think are good enough to watch every year, and Eyes Without a Face was the first movie I picked for my new list! And I've seen it the last two Halloweens and I love it. That mask is seriously creepy but also kind of beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe other movie that I've chosen for Halloween viewing every year is Hausu!
It is very different from traditional Hollywood fare! I do agree that the mask is beautiful, but that simply makes it even more horrorifying.
Delete"Unsettling" is a good word for this. There's also a very large dip into the Uncanny Valley with that expressionless mask. The surgery scene bothered me mostly because of its length--it just keeps going and going and going. But it's that blank mask that sticks with me as the true horror here.
ReplyDeleteYes, the length of the scene is part of its purpose; Franju cuts away but then cuts back to the same shot and holds. Very different from today's 1.5 second shots!
DeleteThe mask must be one of the most iconic props/costumes in cinema history, up there with Dorothy's red shoes.
Such an interesting blend of truly horrific and beautifully poetic. I agree with you entirely on the mask element. It is not so much that we cannot see the face, but the dispassionate stillness of the mask is utterly creepy. An element that also worked very well in Eyes Wide Shut.
ReplyDeleteTaking away that ability to identify with someone else's emotions is what really makes this creepy. While we do feel sympathy with her because of the accident, we don't know quite what Christiane is thinking and feeling; we only get glimmers from her eyes, and even they are ambiguous.
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