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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
