Eyes Without a Face

Starting the month of October this year was a little different, that being that I was homebound for a majority of the time due to COVID-19. I had always said I wanted to have a movie marathon every past October but now I really had the chance to sit down and figure out what movies to watch throughout the month of October. For the first day of October I chose, Les Yeux Sans Visage aka Eyes Without a Face co-written and directed by Georges Franju.

This movie had been on my list of films to watch for years now but I just never found the time to sit down and watch it until this year as the world was stagnant all together. I would be lying if I didn't say that the image depicted of Christiane Genessier didn't frightened me a tad bit when first looking at the movie poster. Her pale Michael Myers-like demeanor staring out into the unknown washed by a veil of blood-like tint with the image of her Father, Dr. Genessier chloroforming an innocent woman. The film is rampant with themes of fatherhood, self-acceptance, and morality as they all interplay around the relationship of a madman scientist of a father and a disfigured daughter. Dr. Genessier wants nothing more than to restructure his daughter's face as he is the cause to her disfigurement due to his irresponsibility behind the wheels of a terrible car accident. His helfup assistant Lousie helps bring in the helpless victims that fall to his sadistic surgeries in an attempt to create a new face for his mouse-like daughter.

The film allows for a poetic interpretation of a father doing anything he can to make his daughter happy again even if it means malpractice and killing innocent women. The daughter, Christiane falls victim to the tragedies placed on her by her father from the car accident to the falsehood that he'd be able to fix her face longing to be reunited with her fiance who is slowly forgetting her. We find an ounce of hope for her when her father is able to take Edna's face (one of his victims) and place it onto Christiane's face only for it to slowly start to decompose as her body is rejecting the new tissue. The pracitical effects within this sequence are quite grotesque as the skin slowly begins to drip off like slime. Soon as viewers we see as Christiane begins to lose hope in ever being "fixed" by her father and begins to come to terms with her skin knowing that some things are irreversible. As she slowly descends into a guilt driven loss of sanity and isolation she begins to call her fiance at times never saying anything but this time she decides to say his name only to have the call ended by Louise. This motions Jacques, the fiance to file a police report believing that all the missing women share similiar characteristics to Christiane and that Dr. Genessier is involved somehow.

As the climax of the film begins to emerge the police send in a spy of sorts to investigate for them to see if Dr. Genessier is truly up to something diabolical. Paulette, an innocen victim herself is sent to investigate in exchange for her freedom after being caught steeling by the police. As Dr. Genessier is about to perform surgery on the innocent Paulette, Louise informs him that the police would like to see him. Meanwhile Christiane sneaks around the house manages to enter the surgery room where she lets Paulette escape to safety as Louise confrtonst Christaine with her actions she is met with a brutal stab at her neck. Christiane watches as Louise slowly dies before she enters the dog kennel and begins to release all the dogs that her father would experiment on. Dr. Genessier is able to get rid of the police by dismaying their questions and returns to see the damage his daughter has caused. He is rapidly attacked by the dogs who all join in on the madness as they maul him to death, karma in its truest form I'd say. Christiane then begins to walk past her father's mutilated body as she escapes into the nearby woods as the doves she has released somehow guide her into freedom.

I'd have to say that this movie has definetly become one of my favorites as it has beautful cinematography followed with an atmospheric sound-score and the static-like acting of Edith Scob as Christiane leaves a haunting memory whenever I think of her pale white motionless masks wandering into the woods surrounded by doves.