In the making-of documentary on my Halloween Blu-ray, John Carpenter remarked that Michael Myers’ signature mask reminded him of the mask worn by Christiane in Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans Visage), the French-language film by Georges Franju. The resemblance between the masks is uncanny but there are other similarities between these two great films.
A few years previously, Christiane (Edith Scob), daughter of the renowned Docteur Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), was in a car accident that horribly mangled her face, leaving only her eyes intact. Christiane is secluded to the doctor’s estate after another young girl is found dead and Génessier identifies her as his “missing” daughter. Génessier has a wild notion (wild before the beauty of Face/Off that is) that a face can be transplanted from one person to another. With the guilt from causing the accident responsible for his daughter’s condition combined with his arrogance that he can actually succeed, Génessier and his assistant enlist unwilling young women as part of the makeshift operation.
This film has elements that seem vaguely familiar but damn if I can place from where. While watching it, I was inexplicably reminded of The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, or otherwise known as Mike’s first episode on MST3k as that is another black and white science-fiction-ish tale of a mad doctor who ultimately succumbs to his “project.” Really, if not for the fact that the film was remarkably engrossing and technically sound, this is almost the type of stuff Mike (or Joel) and the ‘bots would riff on. The wacky, demented carnival music certainly fit that bill as well.
Brasseur as the good doctor gives an impressive performance of a character whose complexities are normally foregone in modern moviemaking. Génessier is the real monster in this tale as Brasseur embodies a man who is determined and yet diabolical, motivations that fit Michael Myers to a T. Scob though has a tough sell for her character. Christiane is almost complicit with her father’s affairs as she sits and watches while young girls are hacked up to make her whole again. When not donning the skin of another woman, Scob is stuck behind a blank, emotionless mask leaving only her eyes and subtle movements of the faux-mouth to express her desire for a normal life on one hand, or a quick death on the other.
Franju takes a very slow and methodical approach to the story, again not unlike Carpenter’s Halloween. There are long stretches of the film without dialogue, which is welcome occurrence to be able to focus on the scenery rather than the subtitles, but also to establish the characters as they plot and plan their next moves. It is odd that this film is lumped in the horror category but this is what I would think a Coen Brothers’ horror film would be like. It is quiet and thoughtful, yet at the same time disturbing. Not so much in the imagery but in the thought of what a man blinded by pride and love is capable of.
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