Nip/Tuck: Franju's Eyes Without a Face

To the strains of Maurice Jarre's spiraling carnival-waltz score, Alida Valli drives through the French countryside just outside of Paris. In the back seat is a figure slumped over, face obscured by a hat. Valli pulls over to the side of the road and drags the body out of the car. Dressed in a man's raincoat and nothing else, the corpse's legs become just a little too visible for comfort as Valli, her own black vinyl raincoat glistening in the moonlight, rolls the dead girl into the Seine.

So begins Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1959). Valli, her drop-dead beauty already fading only ten years on from The Third Man, plays Louise, assistant to, and probable lover of, respected surgeon Genessier (Pierre Brasseur). To the police's knowledge, Genessier's daughter has been missing and when the doctor identifies the river-dumped corpse, a funeral is held. In truth, Christiane Genessier (Edith Scob) is being hidden by her father at his palatial home, her face horribly disfigured by a car accident for which he was responsible. In an attempt to restore his daughter's lovely features, Genessier has Louise lure or abduct young women of similar looks back to their country home where he performs radical procedures that seemed outlandish in 1959 but all to possible 45 years on: he removes the entire face and grafts it onto Christiane. Thus far, however, the grafts have not seemed to take.

The gruesomeness of the surgery scene midway through the film only helps accentuate even more the remarkable beauty Franju conjures at other times. "Poetic" is the word seemingly used without fail in discussions of Eyes Without a Face, and it is completely justified. Christiane wears a white mask as she wanders though her large home/prison, a ghost in her own life. Her finance thinks she is dead, and she cannot bring herself to forgive her father for the disfiguring accident. Aside from the forced seclusion, she is treated lovingly by her father and Louise, but she exists is such a state of ethereal depression that she can only hope to simply fade away.

In addition to the sometimes Cocteau-like beauty that Franju gives the film, the performances pull great empathy from the viewer. For all the horribleness of their crimes (not to mention the almost Naziesque undertones to the doctor's work), Genessier and Louise are not the overwhelming monsters one might expect. The doctor's primary failings are his pride and arrogance, but they obviously arise from a love for Christiane. Louise come across as the more frightening of the two, luring young women with her warm manner, only to have Genessier chloroform them, but she, too, loves Christiane and is tormented by the evils she and the doctor commit. Brassuer and Valli are both excellent in their roles.

It is Edith Scob, however that truly stands out in one of the great performances of the genre. Even through her mask she conveys great sadness, and her walking-on-eggshells stride though her own home is heartbreaking to watch. Two scenes in particular stand out. In one, she visits with the many dogs her father keeps for experimenting his skin grafts on. They bark viciously and constantly, but Christiane comforts them and they welcome her presence and delicate touch. In the other scene, one of the doctor's skin grafts seems as though it may work, and as the three leads sit around the dinner table, Scob's beauty is shown to full effect, but her expressions seem as hesitant as her gait. Brassuer also has one of his best moments here as he commands his daughter to smile, and as she begins adds, "Not too much."

Criterion has predictably put together an outstanding disc, fresh from Rialto's touring rerelease of the last year. The film looks far, far better than those old Video Yesteryear tapes on the eighties, and also improves upon Kino's vhs release of several years ago. The occasional scratch pops up, but is never bothersome. The transfer has a true film-like look with good black and white grain in Eugen Schüfftan's cinematography. Sound is fine as well, with Jarre's score feeling very full and the dialogue always clear (especially evident when Scob is speaking through the mask).

Chief among the special features is Franju's first film, the 20-minute documentary Blood of the Beasts (1949). Franju shoots the workers of a Parisian slaughterhouse as they go about their day. The footage is on the one hand difficult to watch, but one also comes away with an appreciation for the formal beauty of the work, largely accomplished through the black and white photography. As Franju says in a short interview segment after the short, "If it were in color, it would be repulsive. Period."

Other bonus features include an excerpt from a documentary on screenwriters Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (Vertigo, Diabolique), an archival interview with Franju on an odd garish, laboratory set, many production stills, posters, and lobby cards, and essays by David Kalat and novelist Patrick McGrath in the booklet. Also included are two trailers: one for the original French release, and another for the American release as part of a misguided double feature with The Manster. For this U.S. release, the beautiful Les Yeux Sans Visage became........The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus

Posted by jason at December 3, 2004 10:15 AM | TrackBack