Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Still powerful after all this time. I remember, when first seeing this in the early sixties, being outraged that I was asked to pay to see what I compared to watching people have their teeth pulled. Not having seen it since till now I have always remembered that scene, but also the poignant lead in the lifelike mask that floated about the palatial dwelling like some surreal being and always that dreadful sound of the caged dogs barking. Much emphasis on the sounds of things being dragged, scraped and dropped - steel and stone and a dark menacing outside from whence young girls are brought in the name of science and in particular a new face for the masked one. Extremely strong central scene and always the threat of more. The police and routine hospital scenes give brief respite but for most of this masterpiece one is held in awe and horror right to the stunning finale.

Fmovies: This is one of those oddities that makes an interest in cinema worthwhile. Like the equally atmospheric Carnival of Souls, it was made by a director whose primary activity lay in documentaries, and can very much be regarded as a 'one-off'.

Franju's vision is at once beautiful and emetic: on the one hand, we have the stunning face of Edith Scob, the weird sight of her masked figure running into the night, the sequences which are held for longer than seems natural; on the other hand, arguably the most nauseating operation scenes committed to film (and somehow more unpleasant for being in black and white). The atmosphere is one of quiet poetry, but the juxtaposition with horror makes it unusual and effective. A connoisseur's delight. 9 out of 10. See it, if you can stomach it.

At the time 'Les yeux sans visage' was released, the film was not very popular and faced common rejection by the critics. Regardless of those dis-affirmations, it raised to the position of a classic in the horror genre. Franju - one of the founders of the legendary Cinemathèque Française - succeeded in an intriguing way to make film history sensible as a source of inspiration of an entirely peculiar vision.

The clinic of Dr. Génessier (P. Brasseur) is located not very far from Paris. Famous as a specialist in skin grafting, nobody foreshadows that the scientific ambition of the surgeon is incident with a horrifying secret: Since an accident has destroyed the face of Génessier's daughter, Christiane (Scob), the doctor does everything to reconstruct her beauty. With the help of his assistant Louise (Valli) he clucks young women in his remote mansion, benumbs them and makes them a victim of a macabre surgical operation. In a hidden operating room in the basement of his house, Génessier removes the facial skin and transplants it on Christiane's face. Without lasting successes.

That Franjus film has not suffer losses from its immensely disturbing effects is because of, if nothing else, the camera work of Eugen Schüfftans. His brilliant black and white shots resurrects the bright dark of the expressionist German silent film. It imparts Villa Génessier a threatening life of it's own, transmutes it in a mazy horror house which seems like one can not escape. The shadows of the stairway handrails lay on everybody who enters the building like grids and makes him optically a prisoner of Génessier's delusion, mostly his daughter Christiane. Cut from a real life she haunts through the paternal ruins, the garbled face concealed behind a white porcelain mask, whose sad expression seems to nail the doom of the young woman.

Christiane's mask also points out a central principle of formation of the film: It's suspense results substantially from the interaction of visible and invisible things, of showing and dissembling. Franju subtly creates a nightmarish atmosphere that evokes the horror of Génessier's actions, but never makes it explicitly in the first instance - only to show it the viewer more pitilessly: When the surgeon unprovided cuts into the juvenilely beautiful face of one of his victims. This moment of shocking intensity reminds of the razor blade cut through the woman's eye of Bunuel's surrealistic classic 'Un chien andalou' (1929). With the same zest to provoke, Franju also presents the result of an ostensibly succeeded operation: A sober sequence of photographs shows, commented by Génessier off-stage, at first Christiane's angelically delicate face, then how the transplanted skin becomes patchy a few days later, splits open and two weeks later dies off. The cruelty of those two sequences exposes Génessier as a perverted, pestilent doctor and his paternal love as brutal obsession. The attempt to give his daughter a new face means at the same time to erase her identity, to create the ideal woman.

'Les yeux sans visage' remains in the memory of the viewer as one of the rare places on the imaginary continent, phantasmagoric and exigent with ample suspense and shocking details, a perfect alchemy of horror and allegoric poesy whereby one of the most beautiful horror films came into being.

Eyes Without a Face fmovies. Moody terror movie about a mad doctor who removes the faces of gorgeous girls and attempts to graft them onto the ruined head of his disfiguring daughter . It deals with a prestigious but crazed surgeon/scientist named Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), feeling guilty over his intimate daughter's (Edith Scob) facial disfigurement is helped by his assistant Louise (Alida Valli) to kidnap beautiful young women , one of them is Edna (Juliette Mayniel). His beloved daughter is called Christiane (Edith Scob), whose head has been entirely spoiled in a car accident and whose face is so horrible that she wears a mask . All the experiments fail, but he attempts , without success , to transfer their faces and the victims die, but Génessier keeps trying again , but his guinea pig turns out to be his own daughter . Meanwhile , some Police Inspectors (Rignault and Claude Brasseur) are investigating the grisly killings .

Austerily marvelous terror film that contains thrills , chills and haunting poetic fantasy . In this wonderful as well as terrible flick , George Franju established his uniquely poetic and visually striking style . This splendid picture is generally characterized by unforgettable images that owed a great deal to early cinema in general and German Expressionism in particular and results to be a symbolic attack on the ethics of science . Although the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1960, the disturbing facial surgery scene still caused controversy . It was reported that several audience members fainted during the surgery scene . Originally released in the US in an edited version titled "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus" , an odd title considering there's no one named Dr. Faustus in the film . Director John Carpenter once suggested that selecting the mask that Michael Myers wore in Halloween (1978) was influenced by Edith Scob's mask in this film and equally in recent movie (2011) by Pedro Almodovar titled "The Skin I Live In" . Good acting by Pierre Brasseur as a brilliant but demented researcher/scientific/surgeon haunted by past tragedy who abducts girls removing their faces and tries to graft them onto the head on his beloved daughter . Evocative and imaginative cinematography by Eugen Shuftan . Enjoyable musical score by Maurice Jarre , composing in his usual and agreeable style .

This classic terror motion picture , a classic in some circles , was stunningly directed by Georges Franju who never considered the film to be a horror story, but instead felt it was tale of "anguish" . Initial releases of the film were met with negative reactions from film critics , while the general critical reaction had been poor , however ,today is considered to be a masterpiece . One French critic stated the film was "in a minor genre and quite unworthy of Franju's abilities . Franju responded by saying that the film was his attempt to get the minor genre to be taken seriously. Rating : Better than average , well worth watching .

George Franju was a magnificent filmmaker but one of the underrated directors of French cinema , being his feature debut was "Head Against the Wall"(1959) . His reputation was strengthened with the Eyes without of face (1960); Judex (1963), a tribute to French film serial pioneer Louis Feuillade in 1963; and the Jean Cocteau adaptation Thomas l'imposteur (1965), though in the last 15 years of his life he was sadly neglected.

Along with THE SHINING, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and PSYCHO, the best horror film ever made. Franju forsakes the usual signifiers of the genre - hurtling pace, quick editing, signalling music, hysterically scary scenes - in favour of a pace as funereal and petrified as its heroine's face. A soul-chilling film, seeped of all emotion, its scientific subject matter belies a timeless, complicated, non-judgemental Gothic fable about the destruction of innocence, the carelessness of masculine authority and the exploitation of women (especially in art). The many paralells with VERTIGO (the source novel was written by the same writers), the startling tree and animal imagery, the suspended dream logic and the perverse comic sense ensure this film as a classic, and makes one yearn for more Franju.

"Eyes Without A Face" is a groundbreaking and trendsetting artistic nightmare! The plot of this film has often been copied but never has it been done in such an eerily effective style. The sight of the masked daughter playing with the dogs evokes many emotions in the viewer. There are shots in this movie that will stay with you long after you have seen it! Heavily recommended!