By ERIC RED
SEE
RED’S IMDb PROFILE HERE
EYES
WITHOUT A FACE
(1959)
Director:
Georges Franju.
Writers: Pierre Boileau, Thomas
Narcejac, Claude Sautet, Pierre Gascar.
Based on the novel by Jean Redon.
Cast:
Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Edith Scob.
A ruthless plastic surgeon, responsible for his beautiful
daughter being hideously disfigured in an automobile accident, murders young
women and removes their faces trying to perform a skin transplant to restore his
daughter’s face. The experiments are failures, driving the daughter to insanity
and leaving a trail of bodies. A detective investigating the murders struggles
to find the killer before more deaths occur.
Finally the disfigured daughter, after too many failed
operations, decides enough is enough with horrific results. This brilliant
visceral and stylishly atmospheric French black and white film uniquely mixes
darkly poetic and lyrical imagery with gritty realism and truly shocking gore to
create the grimmest of fairy tales. People following today’s current fads for
plastic surgery might think twice about getting a little Nip Tuck of Botox after
seeing this disturbing chiller.
The characters in the film are interesting and compelling.
Guilt wracked Professor Gennesier, the plastic surgeon, is a complex villain who
does the horrible killings to repair his daughter’s face because as a father he
loves her and wants to make his child happy and whole.
His infernal and twisted devotion is corrupted by his own
arrogance to prove his surgical skill. Louise, his loyal henchwoman secretary
and medical assistant is a matronly lady tortured by the things she does for the
man who saved her own face through surgery. The sinister duo of predators scour
the Paris streets for beautiful prey, luring them back to their secluded
suburban country estate with its secret basement operating room.
At the center of the film is the tragic, enigmatic and
haunting figure of the disfigured daughter, Christiane. Drifting balletically
through the rooms of her father’s empty mansion like a ghostly mannequin, her
face covered in a blank featureless wax mask, her eyes are horror holes of
torment. Graceful, fragile and disturbing, Christiane is a memorable horror
icon. Our orientation towards the character is complex, for while she is a
passive accomplice in the crimes to fix her face to restore her beauty, her
plight and suffering is tragic and heart-breaking.
When her father fakes her death and stages a funereal as a
cover for the killings, Christiane calls her beloved fiancé who thinks she is
dead, sitting on the phone without speaking, just to hear the sound of his
voice. And there is something childlike and pure about her as she plays with
flocks of doves in the film’s most indelible image.
Lesser horror films show their victims as mere meat
puppets, two-dimensional ciphers there only for the inventive ways they get
killed off in original splatter scenes. It is a tribute to the quality of “EYES
WITHOUT A FACE” that the audience is made to feel for and identify with the
unfortunate female victim, whom the plastic surgeon and his henchwoman kidnap as
a guinea pig for Christaine’s face grafting. A pretty, naïve student is
targeted on a Parisian street by the monstrous predator Louise who stalks the
University. Lured by the offer of a free ticket to a theatre show, the girl
student is then taken to lunch by the friendly middle-aged henchwoman and
offered a room for rent.
Reluctantly accepting, the poor girl finds herself driven
deep into the countryside to the walled estate. We share the girl’s increasing
unease as she gets out of the car and sees the foreboding estate and surrounding
darkened forest. Her fate is sealed as she is led into the mansion under false
pretenses. She meets the plastic surgeon doctor who along with his henchwoman
comes off like crass bourgeoisie swingers looking for a bedmate. But the
audience knows their intentions are so much worse for the doomed girl who has no
idea what is in store for her.
Nothing prepares the audience for the sudden and shocking
clinical operation sequence where the surgery to remove the girl’s face is shown
in gruesomely clinical and convincing detail. Unheard of in its time in terms of
bloodletting, this transgressive scene is one of the most unflinching gore
scenes you’ll ever see and will make the strongest horror viewer wince. The
French have a distinguished history of Grand Guignol, the famous term for
theatrical gore that comes from the name of the notorious 19th
century Paris theatre that presented shows with elaborate grisly onstage makeup
effects.
In fact, politically correct philistines who gripe about
pictures like “FRIDAY THE 13TH” don’t acknowledge the appetite
audience have for gore shows that go back to the 1600’s when Shakespeare wrote
“TITUS ANDRONICUS” long before cinema was invented. Well, I’m not going to tell
you what happens. Let’s just say the operation is initially successful but
things go very wrong…
Great direction by Georges Franju with spellbinding and
dynamic black and white cinematography by Eugen
Schüfftan, the Maurice Jarre score is an eerie calliope, a peculiar
musical choice that gets under your skin. The script was co-written by the
brilliant thriller novelist team Boileu and Narcejac, whose the books
Hitchcock’s “VERTIGO” and Clouzout’s “DIABOLIQUE” were based on.
I had the pleasure of filming their novel “CHOICE CUTS”
into my film “BODY PARTS.” The “EYES” DVD is put out by Criterion, who do their
usual magnificent transfer and presentation. Informative special features
include a marvelous interview with these brilliant authors as well as Franju.
French cinema has had a great if sporadic output of classic
horror films and thrillers, from “DIABOLIQUE,” “THE WAGES OF FEAR” to “THE
VANISHING.” This overlooked subgenre, like the better-known Italian Giallo
horror, is well-worth viewing. Kudos to Criterion for putting these amazing
films out on DVD.
BUY THE EYES WITHOUT A FACE DVD HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #1 HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #2 HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #3 HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #4 HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #5 HERE
READ ERIC RED RECOMMENDS #6 HERE
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