EEIRE ‘ART’ HORROR FROM FRANCE: GEORGE FRANJU’S LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (EYES WITHOUT A FACE)
EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Les Yeux Sans Visage)
1960/Director: Georges Franju/Writers: Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau
Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Edith Scob, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault, Béatrice Altariba
I cannot say honestly that I have seen much French cinema. I went through a phase almost a couple decades ago where I watched a batch by the big names like Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut but other than the Truffaut film The 400 Blows I can’t remember any of that stuff. I do now recall I saw Goddard’s Breathless and it was so much better than the remake with Richard Gere. I guess the only French filmmaker I may follow at all would be Jean Rollin. Well I had read about the film Yeux Sans Visage for a while and had had it on disk for months before I was in the mood one night for some Euro-fare. I did not expect too much going into the film other than maybe some nice black and white cinematography and loads of spacey acting. I am happy to report that I was surprised by this film and it deserves the praises it normally receives in reviews. The cinematography was great as was the score by Maurice Jarre and the acting was down to earth and believable. I mean, for a French film. I am not into the European ‘existential’ school of depressed method acting. For example like Catherine Deneuve in Polanksi’s Repulsion. Damn, I can’t finish that film no matter how hard I try. I guess depression is scary. I mean just watch Woody Allen’s Interiors. That’s some scary stuff!
Director Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face has many of the elements of Euro-depression cinema that I found I was never hip enough to appreciate really but it also has the qualities of a good film noir story as well which I can appreciate. In fact I would say the film is more of a crime drama than a horror film. Outside a fairly graphic operation scene, that was pretty ahead of its type in terms of shock and gore, the film is more like an Alfred Hitchcock movie than any sort of horror film. The movie was even released in the States as a double bill with the Japanese-American horror film The Manster (a great film that will be reviewed here someday). A more fitting double feature would have possibly been Eyes Without a face and Psycho. Reviews mention the influence of German Expressionism and filmmakers Cocteau and Murnau and I am pretty much out of my element here for the most part so will leave all that to the experts. What I can say about this film is that it looks beautiful and the story moves along briskly. It never gets too pretentious and, as far as I concerned, does not try to deliver some unnecessarily deep message. I mean that is there if you want to look for it. It has to be. The film is French for God’s sake. This is the place that produced Sartre and Camus. Probably coffee commercials on TV there have some existential message about the isolated individual standing naked before a cold, merciless Universe. But this is also a reasonably straightforward and watchable suspense film.
The story is about the anguish of the horribly disfigured and masked Christiane (Edith Scob). We are not sure of the details other than that it was her father who was driving the car that wrecked her face beyond recognition in an accident one night. As chance would have her father is Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) , a renowned surgeon. Now he is driven by his guilt and love for his daughter to restore her face at any cost. And of course this includes murder if necessary. The film opens with his devoted assistant Louise (Alida Valli) disposing of a body in a dark, cold river. The body belongs to the last females Dr. Génessier used in his experiments to graft the face from one young female with similar features onto Christiane. The operation failed and I am not sure why the girl is dead but it is of little consequence really. As anyone who is familiar with the ‘face restoration’ sub-genre in horror knows the doctor will stop at nothing to not only restore the face of the one he loves but to prove his own genius to the world. Dr. Génessier actually seems to be driven more by guilt than glory and this twist rescues Eyes Without a Face from becoming simply another mad doctor movie. In fact he never comes off as insane or deluded, but as simply driven.
There is little doubt, however, that Louise and Dr. Génessier are ultimately a dark and sinister pair. When the body of the dead girl is fished from the river Génessier identifies the body as that of Christine’s, much to the despair of the girl’s real father who is at his wit’s end. Louise soon sets out to trolling Paris looking for the next ‘subject’ and it is found the form of the lovely young Edna (Juliette Mayniel). Edna is looking for a room to rent and Louise gains her trust and drives her out to the remote country chateau of Génessier and his clinic. Edna soon develops reservations but it far too late. She is chloroformed and soon on a surgical table having her face lifted off in one of the most uncomfortable scenes ever put to film. It is unflinching and done slowly. The flesh is actually lifted from the girl’s face in a fairly graphic fashion that had it been in color would have been simply exploitative gore not far removed from the likes of Hershall Gordon Lewis. Not to suggest the film resembles the shabby exploitation fare of Lewis as a whole. Just that this one scene is more disquieting than, in black and white, than any of Lewis’s full color comic book style violence. It is all the more disturbing because the character of Edna is developed fully in her short time on screen and you really do not want anything so horrible to happen to her. Edna soon commits understandable suicide and the yet the operation at first seems to be a success. But soon Edna’s body begins to reject the new face and little by little it deteriorates and a new subject is needed.
Christiane spends her days alone in an upstairs bedroom and sometimes in moments of lonely despair calls her former fiancée Jacques (François Guérin). She listens to him say hello over and over before hanging up in anguish. Jacques is in contact with the local police and suspects that there is more to Christiane’s case than meets the eyes. Soon the police have the same feeling and in a recurring scenario that happens in often in European styled crime films they enlist the help of an untrained civilian in acting as bait to attract the attention of the killer or killers. In this case the civilian is Paulette (Beatrice Altariba) who resembles Christiane and is all but blackmailed by the cops in securing her cooperation. The film ends with Christiane setting Paulette free and realizing that she can never have her face back and that the cost is too great for her to bear any longer. She stabs Louise with a scalpel and turns loose the dogs used by her father in his early skin grafting experiments. In true poetic justice the dogs turn on their master and rip his face. Christiane walks off into the night surrounded by the fluttering white doves she also set free from their captivity.
The images of Christiane’s morose eyes staring through the unmoving mask are haunting and convey a surprising range of emotion. Well, a surprising range of depressing emotions but what else would we expect. John Carpenter said the mask used in the film was an influence on his final selection for the mask he chose fro Michael Myer’s in his Halloween films. The French title of the film, Yeux Sans Visage, is sang in the chorus of the Billy Idol song Eyes Without a Face. The movie inspired two Jesse Franco films, Gritos en la noche (with Dr. Orloff) and Faceless. The interesting Italian film Atom Age Vampire (review coming someday) also deals with an obsessed surgeon trying to restored his daughter’s disfigured face at any cost. Cannot recommend this one enough. Also now have Franju’s first film Le Sang de Betes (Blood of the Beasts) which is an experimental film about animals being butchered in lovely black and white in an arbitoir. I’ll get back on that one some sunny day.
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December 6th, 2009 at 3:06 am
You have lots of prejudices on French cinema, and French acting, if the acting in Repulsion is “spacey”, it’s an exception, and existentialism was a current of the fifties, there were lots of films before and after! You might try to watch Renoirs one day,Clouzots or Melvilles ( they might amaze you!)
About the film , if the acting is down to earth, I was extremly disapointed! I thought that the music which is good by itself gave an ironic distance to what’s going on, and that there was no way we could identify with the characters! All in all the film is kitsch and must be loved for its kitschness because it wouldn’t frighten a child!
December 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I do not know if I would say I have prejudices against French films in particular anymore than Japanese or even American films that would follow the same plodding story telling style I find in many French films. I have seen quite a few French films and most were the b/w style of the 60’s by people like Godard or Truffaut and I tend to like most of those and I believe I mention that in the article. I have also seen some other films I felt were too pretentious and boring as far as the story went but excelled in areas like cinematography. I would have to say my response is similar to the films of Ingmar Bergman whom I always heard so much about and tried a few films during my ‘art’ film period and while the films were lovely to look at the stories drug on and on in an excruciating manner that I found difficult to enjoy. I do not know if I have to keep trying those films over and over until maybe someday I will like them. I guess part of me wishes I could like them. Another example might me Fellini. I know the guy is a genius and all that but maybe I am not a guy who likes the film work of such filmmakers. I liked Le Dolce Vita and La Strada but some of the other material I just could not follow. Like Roma. Some parts look wonderful but the the story was so vague it was painful. Some people would argue the story is deliberately vague and obfuscated. That only a few people have the refinement to analyze such films. I have the same criticism, for example, of American filmmaker David Lynch for the most part. Maybe he watched too many French films as a film student, who knows. Maybe these matters are not the case for you when you watch such films. And also the films here are not going to be of a ‘refined’ and high caliber in the first place. My God I review stuff like Astro Zombies and The Creeping Terror. I love David Lean films but do not know if I would do a write up at this blog on any of his films here. They would be out of place I feel.
And apparently you do not like all French cinema yourself since you have some strong criticisms of Eyes Without a Face and refer to it as ‘kitch’ which may well be why it wound up here in the first place, but the film seems to have a following of not only viewers but film makers who find it to be a well made and influential film. I do not think any film by Clouzet ever inspired a horror film director to fashion a serial killer’s mask in similar likeness to a character in one of his films and to me that is a sign of true greatness.
But I doubt I will ever find a middle ground ground with anyone who ends every sentence with an exclamation mark. You even add an exclamation mark to a parenthetical statement. Geesh, chill out. They are just movies. I visited your site and see your credentials as a film student and even an actress and those are impressive but in the end film is like painting and people like what they like and there seems to be no logic to it. If anyone has read this an wants to visit Valerie’s bilingual site then please do at Silver Particulars. Perhaps you can give me some recommendations of some French films I may like then. Other than Godard. Something I can approach little by little. Maybe something suitable for this site.
In closing I did get the film Blood of the Beasts by George Franju after doing the research for my post and it is quite something to be certain. Not for the squeamish or vegetarians.
December 6th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
I admit that I’ve been a bit offended, and that I love exclamation marks, you’re not the first one to tell me so
I guess that I am always trying to add something from oral speeches in written one. I am trying not to use the exclamation mark right now! Oops did it again!
Anyway, I understand your point of view and I’ve noticed many times that american cinema student kind of forced themselves to love European films because they’re loved by critics. But most of the time you only get the intelectual european films while there are tons of Italian or French comedies that you could get right away and love, in Europe we have a popular culture!
Personnally I love both (popular and arty) , I never had to force myself to watch a Fellini, I love it! And I do understand that it’s a matter of taste! I love cinema and sometimes I get very aggressive defending or accusing, you see I’d love a real globalisation of culture where it would be possible everywhere to watch all the films. When I lived in England and travelled back to France, I wanted to buy DVD of popular films I love, but most of the time there are no English subtitles on them. The fans of japanimation (which I also adore) make the subtitles for those who don’t understand japanese, if I knew how and if I had time for that I would do it for all the cool french films you’ll never see.
About Maurice Jarre’s score I love it but I think it doesn’t work with the film, on the other hand I saw on a blog extract of the Eyes without a face with portishead’s music and that was creepy! I hope that you’ll forgive my last “emportement” and I will go on reading your blog! Cheers
December 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Valerie
No need to be forgiven as you did or said nothing wrong. Your simply voiced your opinion which is different than mine. I may well be wrong on the matter and will need time to think it over. It is okay to have different views and I think my satire is not presented well. I think I intended, actually, to make a bit of a joke at American movie watchers who typically refuse to even try something that does not have a car chase or girl is a bikini in it. Sometimes American films are ‘junk food’ if you will though not all of the time of course. I know that French cinema is influential and well made but I try to lighten up the tone of some of the reviews here. I seriously have tried to enjoy some ‘arty’ things and continue to but some leave me disappointed tough the problem may lay with my inability to access the film’s message while someone else may be able to. I made a joke about Woody Allen’s Bergmen influenced film Interiors but to be honest I lied that movie. I was the only one of my small circle who even tried it much less liked it. I know however that not all European films are ‘arty’ but I think I was making a joke that most Americans see it that way. I think I made a joke about how profound French TV commercials must be but I was not serious.
I actually do not live in the US and have lived in China for five years and it is also a struggle here to always get films with subs. Naturally the films will have Chinese subs but many European films or Asian films outside China lack an English sub option. It is interesting, I feel, how we tend to do one of two things when we live abroad for many years, we either distance ourselves more from our culture or we struggle to retain some aspects of it. Probably a little of both has happened with em but in terms of cinema I feel I lean towards the west more than Asia. And yes, it is hard to get French or Italian films here with working English subs unless it is from a good source like the Criterion Collection and so my options become more limited. I do download films and have gotten pretty good about finding subs online but sometimes the subs do not match up to the film timing even after editing with a program that adjusts timing.
It is all interesting I feel and please know that there is an element of satire involved. My God I am preparing an article on The Mesa of Lost Women, one of the worst films ever made. If I did not approach it with humor I would descend into madness. Since I know you may be out there reading Valerie I will be more careful with my remarks about French cinema in the future, I promise.
Bill