Film 207 in the “1001 Films to See Before You Die” challenge is 1960’s “Les yeux sans visage”. Or as it’s known in English, “Eyes Without a Face”. This Georges Franju French horror drama is based on Jean Redon’s novel of the same name and is about a doctor riddled with guilt trying to find the perfect face for his daughter after an accident he caused to her face. Overall, this film has a lot of places where there is not a lot happening. Scenes where you expect some form of background music, there’s nothing! I don’t know if that adds to the creepiness or not. To me, it made me bored and waiting for something to happen. The big talking point of the film is that they show an operation where a girl gets her face removed and you get to see every bit of it. From cutting to removing with scissors. That was a scene where I had to look through my hands. Apart from that, the rest of the film went at such a slow pace I lost interest in bits. Overall, this film was ok but I wouldn’t recommend it. In 2004, Edith Scob, who played the doctor’s daughter, had this to say about the film, “Georges Franju would say the most beautiful horror film he had ever seen was a documentary about a trepanation, where you could see the brain of the patient and the patient smiling, as he did not feel anything. For Franju, this was the ultimate in fantasy”. Fun Fact of the Film #1 – John Carpenter once said that Michael Myer’s mask in 1978’s “Halloween” was influenced by the one in this film. Fun Fact of the Film #2 – When this film premiered in Scotland, this film caused all the men in the cinema to faint. If you have seen this film then let me know what you thought of it in the comments. Here is what I had to say while watching 1960’s “Les yeux sans visage”
Year – 1960
Director – Georges Franju
Written by – Georges Franju, Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Marcejac, Claude Sautet
Based On – “Les yeux sans visage” by Jean Redon
Staring – Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel
IMDb Rating – 7.8/10
My Rating – 6/10
Length – 88 min (1h 28min)
Genre – Drama, Horror
We open the film with a woman driving a Citroen 2CV in the rain
Note to any/all drivers – Hide a manaquin in the back seat so you can use the car pool lane
Turns out that the person in the back seat is dead and she’s dumping the body in the river
Nice comb-over
Fuck! The subtitles are in Spanish only
People have gathered to a speech by a doctor
That is an badly designed door
At a office, two men chat
Good God all the cars are ugly
Doctor arrives at the morgue to meet the two men and to identify his daughter’s body
They are led to believe that is his daughter
At college, a group of girls leave to meet a man
The woman with the 2CV follows one of the women
Time for the Doctor’s daughter’s funeral
To quote IT Crowd – “I’m sorry for your lose. Move on”
Turns out the woman with the 2CV is Doctor’s assistant
The two head home
Will someone shut them dogs up?
An awful lot of nothing is happening
Turns out the daughter is alive
She’s in her room wearing a mask
So… you’re “dead”. Better change your name
Assisstant arrives with a mask and a glass of milk for Daughter
With this mask, I can leave my room
Part of me wants her to turn into Jim Carrey’s Mask
She rings someone just to hear their voice
Meanwhile, at the cinema
Assistant is looking for a girl
She finds one and the two spend the day together
Shout out to the Carlsberg ashtray
The two then head to Doctor’s house as the girl doesn’t have a place to spend the night
Found the midnight train. Destination – Anywhere
Welcome to my home
Doctor knocks out the girl with ether and burns the evidence
Daughter watches on as Doctor and Assistant take the girl to the lab
Why the fuck didn’t we knock her out downstairs?
Bet no one will see me behind his car window
With the secret entrance left open, Daughter heads in and has a look around
Better wake her up… Or not
Turns out Doctor has a room with caged dogs that are going to be experimented on
Now I’ll wake her up… Na
Daughter has taken off her mask and this time she’ll wake the girl up
Let the operation begin – First we need to remove the pencil from his right forearm
Daughter is also in the operating room, knocked out waiting for her new face
This is something I really didn’t want to see
Now to cut around the eyes
Thankfully we don’t see that bit
Insert lots of scissors to the face to make it easier to peel off
EWWW!!!!!! And off comes the face
Turns out Assistant also has had a new face put on
Her scars are hidden behind her pearl necklace
The girl knocks out Assistant with a bottle and escapes
Doctor arrives and hears the news about the escape
I’ll hide in only place I feel safe… The bathroom
That’s the same scream from earlier
And she’s dead by falling out of the bathroom window
Well… Better bury her with the other girl we buried earlier… in the same grave
At the police station, the girl’s friend tells them her friend is missing
Success! The operation was successful and Daughter has a face
It’s feels both creepy and weird seeing her with a face
Let’s celebrate over dinner
She brings up Jacques – I’m assuming their in love
Time passes and the face is melting away
This means Daughter has to wear her mask again
Meanwhile, Doctor is experimenting on a dog
Daughter returns to the phone to give Jacques a call
Daughter gets knocked out by Assistant
Jacques tells the police that something is up at Doctor’s house
The girl’s friend returns and gets told her friend is reported dead
Doctor finds a new girl to experiment on at a hospital
Also, Jacques is a doctor as well
Quick check up with a little boy and I’ll be leaving
A girl gets her brain examined
The girl from the hospital is picked up by Assistant and taken to Doctor’s house
She gets her face experimented on but is stopped when police arrive
They can’t find any evidence to the missing girls making Jacques feel guilty
The new girl wakes up as Daughter watches on
Daughter helps the girl escapes and stabs Assistant in the throat
Her next plan is to let all the dogs loose
That answers the Baha Men’s question about who let the dogs out?
Doctor returns and gets attacked by the dogs
He is potentially killed when the dogs tear his face off
THE END
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