Eyes Without a Face

Title: Eyes Without a Face
Director: Georges Franju
Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel
Year: 1959
MPAA: Not Rated
Date of Review: May 31, 2006

Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (curiously renamed The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus for American audiences) sets an uneasy tone from the opening shot, taken from inside a car driving down a rural road at night as circus-like music plays in the background. The audience comes to know this music quite well, as it becomes the theme song for the film, and a signal that another act of desperation and cruelty is going to occur. This is one of those very rare films often referred to as "a thinking man's horror film", which, rather than bombarding the audience with grotesque gore and unnecessary sexuality, actually asks them to think about what is happening, and to come to their own conclusions about the message.

The film stars Pierre Brasseur as Doctor Génessier, a brilliant doctor in Paris who believes he has discovered a means of transplanting bodily tissue (quite a groundbreaking idea for the film's 1959 release date). And in a cruel twist of fate, his daughter is left, quite literally, without a face after a horrendous car wreck, forcing the doctor to put his techniques to practical use right away. His sick mind, however, leads him and his assistant Louise (played by Alida Valli) to kidnap and murder young women of the "same type of beauty" as his daughter, and steal their faces in an attempt to fix his daughter, Christiane. Part Frankenstein, part Silence of the Lambs, this film is not conventional horror in any way - it combines ideas frequently seen in slashers, monster movies, and supernatural thrillers.

Eyes Without a Face is beautifully photographed, giving it an almost Gothic look and texture, especially in the house in which Christiane resides. It is visually wonderful in every way, and this is where it achieves its scares, as well. The mask Christiane is burdened to wear is much more frightening than any scars or bruns could ever be - a plain white sheet of plastic molded to the contours of her face, completely colourless and expressionless, giving a ghost-like quality to her already gaunt figure. She roams around the house like a child lost in a dream, and seeing no changes in the facial expression is quite unnerving.

A very effective film, Franju's Eyes Without a Face is both frightening and heartbreaking. Nothing could be more devastating to a young woman than the total loss of her face - and so the audience understands her pain and why she feels as though she is already dead. It is definitely best to watch this film without any expectations regarding how frightening it is, as it is more ghastly in its concept and what the audience imagines for themselves, rather than what is actually given to them on screen. However, this is not a negative - it is simply for a different audience than those that would enjoy the gorefests of today.

8/10