Eyes Without a Face

Dir: Georges Franju

1960

*****

Based on Jean Redon's novel of the same name, Georges Franju's adaptation sent shock-waves through the world of cinema, even though it had been purposely toned down. It is now considered a masterpiece, and it really is, but in 1960 it was met with revulsion from many of the top critics. Film producer Jules Borkon wanted to tap into the popularity of British horror at the time, films such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Horrorof Dracula had done well but there weren't any French equivalents. Borkon bought the rights to Redon's novel and asked George Franju, one of the founders of Cinémathèque Française, to direct. Franju jumped at the opportunity, as he saw it as a continuation of fantastique French cinema, the logical progression of the early Georges Méliès and Louis Feuillade films he grew up watching. He saw the film as a complex drama rather than a horror film, which it is, and as well as taking out scenes of torture and blood for the sake of censorship, he also got rid of the mad-scientist element of the original story to produce a more suitable tone to give the crux of the story a more poetic feel. He described the story as one of "anguish...it's a quieter mood than horror...more internal, more penetrating. It's horror in homeopathic doses". The performances are strong but Édith Scob steals the show and proves that it is entirely possible to act and pull off an incredible performance while wearing a mask. It is proof that horror isn't always in the blood, the gore, the attack or the suspense but it also lies in the idea, passion and in the madness of kind. It may be Cinémathèque Française technically but there is a lot of German expressionism going here too, the film feeling more like a universally European film in general. The direction is exquisite and the cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful, it's somewhere between Jacques Tourneur and Alfred Hitchcock but it could be said that Franju influenced them both, with all three raising each other's game. It certainly is influential in its style and most certainly one of the pillars of the Giallo genre. It has influences a whole host of films since, including everything from Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin ILive In to John Woo's Face/Off. You could also say that it influenced every horror film that features a masked villain, John Carpenter's Halloween being the first that springs to mind. An incredibly moving masterpiece that will haunt you long after you watch it. Eerie but beautiful.