Eyes Without a Face Reviews

Since I want to watch two specific things with kind of similar premises, I decided to first watch the most famous surgeon thriller I know of, “La piel que habito”, which led me to find out about and watch every kind of similar title as well, and since I’ve got some things to say about them, I’m here, starting with the one movie that’s assumed to have started it all.

In terms of production, I guess it’s pretty good for its time, at no point I felt like the production was cheap and low budget, and the backgrounds add a lot to the sort of gothic atmosphere it was going for, the special effects are quite good for its time as well, noticeable in the transformation scenes, the expressionless mask that the main girl uses it’s good, mysterious and a bit creepy as well. The downside come from the characters being very plain looking, and the motions being rather bad, noticeable during the climax of the movie.

The sound effects were good for its time I guess, and everyone performed their role just fine. The music on the other hand was a big issue, mostly absent, and whenever present, it was just… misused. It was also very simple, repetitive and unfitting for the type of story, coming off as immersion breaking.

If you watched at least one of all the later titles influenced by it you know by now what the plot is about, a mad scientist killing young girls to take off their faces and using their skin on the face of his disfigured daughter. The pacing is quite good, balancing in a rather short runtime the plot progression along with enough downtime focused on the drama and characterization. I mean no character has a very distinctive nor complicated personality, or much of a backdrop, but each one is given at least some focus at some point to show their mentality during the whole thing, especially for the girl, who feels remorse for all the deaths caused because of her and has been in pain for so long that just wants to die. Since she is the character with the most focus on the film, the…kind of epic resolution and her actions in specific felt very cathartic. It doesn’t sound like much, but only one of the many movies inspired by it really gave enough attention to its characters, while every other title stopped at being passable shlock.

Every other contemporary movie that tried to copy it tried to add its own spin to the premise and plot structure, but ended up failing in the long run. That’s what makes this film half worth watching, once, even if it’s nothing special. It’s definitely not the credibility of the plot, since what happens it’s not very believable. It may have been quite the title for its time but I still think its rating everywhere is a bit too high, partly because of some movies that came before it, and partly because so many titles followed the same formula afterwards, that now it doesn’t feel special at all.

I mean, among the most famous titles, it influenced some aspects of Halloween and Face/Off, as well as La piel que habito which I mentioned at the beginning of this review, so I guess it has some sort of historical value added to it to give it a try, but it definitely doesn’t hold much rewatch value because of its simplicity.

I just realized how naive I really am. I haven't seen much of pre-70's horror, bar the Universal ones, and I have only one image of them: That they're minimalistic, completely devoid of any blood/gore and totally suspense-ish. Well, Eyes Without a Face proved me wrong. Dead wrong. This film is a bloody, and sympathetic, real fairy-tale in motion. The thing about old films are that they're brutally honest in their titles, no misleading or anything. If it says I Cut Off His Tongue And Hung It In The Entrance Of The Buckingham Palace, then that said film will offer you exactly that, but thank goodness, no such film exists. Now, this film commands not only your attention but also your nerves, all of them, for its quite-disturbing imagery and the dread-filled 5 minute skin grafting scene. Not only it is brilliant, but a great example of surgical-porn. The reason why that scene, and the whole film for that matter, shocked me because I had absolutely no idea that films like this existed in the yesteryear's cinema. Yup, like I said, I'm naive all-right. Eyes Without a Face was a fun find and is worth every 80 minutes of it.

Anyway, 10 minutes into the film and I knew it would turn out to be great and would eventually end up in my greatest films list. How right I was proven. The direction is very good, the mood consistently changes from chilly to suspense to heart-breaking, especially in the scenes where Christiane is concerned. Her sad eyes and mask for a face is just too much to take it in and one must remember that it's all a film. Further, the background music, I believe there are two, are just friggin' brilliant. Never quite heard anything like that in a movie.

Now, in the performance department, the three principal actors were truly brilliant. Stealing the show was Pierre Brasseur as Dr. Genessier, a character who can be used as an example in the famous Trolley Problem. He was magnificus in his role. A role that deserves a standing ovation, yes it was that great. I favour performances like this over almost everything else. To me it's one of the best examples of great acting. Then, from the ladies, we have Edith Scob as Christiane Genessier, the doctor's daughter. Her smooth, fluid movements and soft hand movements just won me over. I could watch that performance over and over again. Then we have Alida Valli as Louise, the doctor's secretary. Mentioning her last doesn't mean she was the weakest. No, far from it. If Pierre provided one strong shoulder to the film, then Alida provided the other, with Edith just smoothly sliding in-between. Alida's performance may not win you the first time but in time you will realize that this film just could not have done without her. I hope to see more of her films!

In conclusion, this is one of the better results I've had this week and has now become one of my personal all-time favourites, a permanent addition to it. If you still haven't seen it, you're missing a true, and terribly awesome, experience. So, do yourself a favour and download Eyes Without a Face now and great prepared for a lot of tense and gory moments. OK, not Wizard of Gore gory, but Psycho gory!

9.0/10

The most terrifying film I've ever seen, bar none. Those familiar with the film will know that it is not just the shocking moments of surgical gore and mutilation that provides terror, but the long, arduous and uneasy wait for that mask to be lifted from 'the face' of that girl, painfully frail beneath her trench coat. But perhaps the most uncomfortable things of all are each moral dilemma that the characters face and the consequences that occur as a result of each nasty decision. Set to Maurice Jarre's creepy Carinval music, Pierre Brasseur's surgeon and his assistant, Alida Valli, lure pretty young woman to their home in the hopes of heterografting an entire face to restore his daughter's disfigured one. Whilst the surgical scenes are horrifying, it's the sadness in the eyes behind the daughter's mask that haunt. A superb performance from Brasseur and excellent cinematography add to a truly unforgettable film that is certainly not for the faint-hearted. In short, it scared the hell out of me.

5/5