Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Eyes Without a Face (1960), directed by Georges Franju.
A surgeon attempts repeated face transplants for his daughter, disfigured in a car accident. The donors are kidnapped and disposed of afterwards.
This is one of the creepier films I had never seen before. It plays on very common fears: of surgery, of being cut, of being at the mercy of the men in white. It also has elements unexpected in a 1960 film:
We would suspect that young Christiane would be innocent of the crimes committed for her -- but it is not so, at least at first.
Given the careful avoidance of her face ("an open wound") and her lovely, eerie mask, but don't expect to see her disfigured face -- but we do.
We don't expect to see the explicit surgery of a victim's face removed -- but we do.
It makes us reflect on the nature of beauty, and how love and obsession interact with repulsion.
The doctor's loyal assistant is Alida Valli, who was so cool and mysterious in The Third Man (1949) and The Paradine Case (1947). I saw her most recently in Senso (1954).
Written by the same pair who did the stories for Diabolique (1955) and Vertigo (1958).
Vivid Maurice Jarre score, ranging from deranged carnival variations for the villains, to an eerie music box tune for poor masked Christiane.
Criterion Blu-ray with a fine image.
