Why See This...Eyes Without A Face [1960]

      Many people can agree on the fact that most of today’s horror movies aren’t actually scary. Our generation has not had its Exorcist or Jaws that literally changed the way we lived. Movies today rely far too much on blood and gore in their attempts to be scary and in the end when people avert their eyes from the screen, it’s because they are disgusted not scared. And this problem could get worse in the near future as CGI and special effects have evolved so well that its hard not to believe really make someone’s head being split in half look pretty real. Unfortunately movies like Saw and Hostel will continue to be made and look even more real further saturating the horror genre with their excessive amounts of blood and guts. But I hate being too critical. Maybe a little patience is in order because I have to admit I love a good ketchup-stained classic slasher every now and then, and in the case of The Evil Dead, these movies just get better over time.
       And it’s true the older you get, the harder it is to find a movie that actually scares you. These days I like to use the word “haunting” as opposed to calling something “scary.” I can find a movie haunting and still sleep without leaving the light on. For something like this, I reached back to the old black and white days of the cinema for Georges Franjus’ French language thriller Eyes Without A Face. Released in 1960, I immediately think back to another horror film released that same year- an American film done by a British director. Heralded as one of the scariest and thrilling movies ever made, its most famous and most gruesome scene never actually shows the murderer’s knife slice through its victim’s skin, yet this movie can still haunt and captivate an audience today. What seperates this film and Eyes Without A Face with the horror films of today is that these classic don’t need to rely on gallons of blood to make their movie seem scary or haunting. In fact, some of the most haunting and mesmerizing aspects of the film are those images not projected onto the screen. Eyes Without A Face is at its best when it purposely [and purposefully] flirts with ideas and deliberately chooses not to show them to us. We are left on our own only to guess and assume the worst. It’s quite an unsettling technique that holds well with imagination and dreaded suspense- two things audiences hate to have.

      What I'm referring to is exactly that which makes up the title. Christiane (Edith Scob) has no face, or at least one that anyone would like to look at. The young girl’s face was horribly mangled in a car accident at the hands of her father (Pierre Brassuer), a well-to-do plastic surgeon. Now living in complete regret of his actions, the father has devoted his medical practices to giving Christiane a new face and ultimately a new life. But the procedure does not come easy for him –or for us. To give Christiane back her beautiful face, the doctor, with the help of his lover and quite awful assistant (Juliette Mayniel) must first find a nice young looking girl on the streets and then of course, take off her face. It’s sympathy for the devil here as the film immediately lures us in as we give out our compassion for the poor doctor, only to betray us with a psychopathic murderer. Holed up in his reclusive suburban mansion, the doctor goes to work slicing off many faces lovely young Parisian girls in an effort to help his poor daughter. We are supposed to understand how this is all for a greater good, but this is hard to fathom, even for the doctor. By day he still goes about his usual business helping patients such as a little boy with an ear infection telling him he will be alright. We come to understand that if his daughter was never in this position the doctor would never think to commit such horrible crimes. Having these scenes makes Eyes Without A Face that much harder to watch.

      Even more difficult to look at is the character of Christiane. We know of the car accident and the results of which took her face, but we never actually see (clearly) what the damage looks like. The audience is left in anticipation only to imagine the horrors of what lies beneath her mask. Better yet, because we never really see her face in its horrible condition, Franju’s film allows us to creep underneath the skin (no pun intended) and get to the bottom of the pathos of this young, secluded girl. Some of the most haunting scenes depict Christiane aimlessly walking around her father’s mansion underneath the mask and coming upon the laboratory and a “patient.” While possibly wearing her opportunity for a new life, Christiane still sympathizes for these girls, but what can she do? Her emotions all still clear underneath the white dead-panned expression of her mask.

      Though as I rant about the good and bad aspects of horror films I am not sure I would have necessarily called Eyes Without A Face a horror film was it not for the DVD package labeling. It contains all the standard elements of a horror movie- a giant mansion, a mad scientist, his creepy assistant- yet there is so much pity and sadness for these characters that brings this horror film to another level above so many others.  Without too much fake blood, Eyes Without A Face is a masterful horror film that is more haunting than almost anything else I have ever watched.