the audience applauded

A lot of fun.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

"Eyes Without a Face" disappointed me. Its plot is exceedingly familiar. How many movies are there about evil doctors claiming victims for shadowy experiments? How many are there about doctors claiming victims for just this reason, rebuilding the face or body of their daughter, wife, sister, or whomever? I know, you're probably thinking that this idea may have been original in the '50s. Considering this, you start looking for signs that the movie at least told the story better than the 1001 rip offs that came after it.But if it did, that's hardly a point of pride, since this story was mostly used by b-filmmakers like Jess Franco.It's perhaps marginally better than most of its rip offs. The only really indelible image is the girl in the mask. The movie has no suspense or tension or anything like that.It is worth noting that the movie seems to have been recognized in its day mainly for its violence, which still seems shocking for a movie made in the '50s. This is worth noting because all the rip offs that came later totally out did it on that score, as you can imagine.Therefore, you may wonder what the point of this original version is?

EYES WITHOUT A FACE is widely considered to be one of the landmarks of horror cinema, helping to usher in a new wave of grisly, physical horror movies in the 1960s. Seen today it's a good companion piece to LES DIABOLIQUES, going for a gutsy, visceral approach rather than a psychological thriller style, although it still has plenty of character depth. The simple storyline, about a deranged surgeon trying to graft a new face onto his disfigured daughter, has proved hugely influential even to this day.The film benefits from strong direction which delivers a chilly atmosphere to the proceedings. There's no faulting the acting either, but really it's the script that makes this work; the story plays out in a cold, dispassionate way that links nicely with the events on the screen. Even today, the surgical scenes are shockingly graphic and disturbing, and really pack a punch. The film is a slow burner that builds to a Grand Guignol-style climax that works a treat.

What an incredible experience this is. A story that deals with such revulsion and bleak desperation emerges as a haunting thing of beauty. This is largely due to the performance of Edith Scob as the gracefully tragic Christiane, whose face is destroyed in a car crash caused by her father. She is condemned to flit through the prison her family home has become, equally imprisoned by the mask she wears to hide her ravaged features. The mask itself is simplicity itself, yet almost appears to emote at times – it is quite incredible how lifelike it can be in some scenes, and coldly sinister in others.The music is a major factor in this film's feelings of unease. Some scenes – such as Christiane visiting the latest 'victim' strapped down in her father's surgery – are accompanied by nothing except the howls of the many guard-dogs caged outside. Other scenes, including the story's opening, are scored with a deceptively jolly carnival suite. This deeply inappropriate music could rob the film of any horror atmospherics, instead it enhances the feeling of perverse unease.Filmed with slow deliberation, fitting for a story involving the intricacies of surgery, the style is reminiscent of other films of the time, notably Hitchcock's Psycho (another major horror contribution from 1960). It also brings to mind the more recent horror shocker The Human Centipede, which caused a similar reaction in cinemas in 2009. Two scenes stand out as being remarkably, repulsively powerful. One is the unflinching sequence involving the removal of a human face, and other is the gruesome attack on Christiane's father, Doctor Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), by the dogs – ironically rendering his face to pulp too.As for Christiane's fate – who knows? She frees the dogs, and drifts off into the night like a ghostly apparition, framed by the flitting of the pet doves she has also freed. We can only imagine what becomes of her – throughout, she has longed for death, sickened by her father's attempts to save her face, so her future is bleak. We will have to make up our minds.

I think this is less horror than it is a drama of existential anguish in which horrifying things happen; all of the characters in some way are struggling to hold together or discover a certain reality and the truthfulness of what is happening, with little to no result. Doctor Génessier, the father who has grievously wounded his daughter in a car accident and desperately seeks to repair his daughter's face is a brilliant play on the 'mad scientist' archetype: he has a realised goal to which all of his energy is channelled, but he doesn't flail around with typical melodramatic ambition. His eyes are haunted and distant, and when he communicates with the outside world it is often brief philosophical responses. In all his preoccupation he seems to exist restlessly in a purgatory. But this purgatory is beautiful though; a subdued monochrome world built on fairly quiet visuals that are sharply punctuated by moments of horror which are surprisingly gruesome for 1960.One of the most disturbing scenes in the film comes at a moment when the Doctor presents a slideshow charting the gradual failure of a skin graft operation. We see pictures of his daughter's face as the body slowly rejects it and it becomes more deformed, and we wonder what he is willing to do to achieve success, and how much she has to suffer in its pursuit. There are moral ambiguities here, but his goal is not as unreasonable as it is his methods. He coldly buries someone's daughter under the pretence that it is his own, he ensnares young women in his house, and he keeps dogs and birds locked away somewhere in his cellar like a fairy-tale villain, the said dogs cruelly confined in these odd, almost space-age pens. But the ultimate emotional pain comes from his daughter, Christiane, who is the final victim of all this, as she to carry the weight of everything her father does, which is supposedly for her. Her introduction is marvellous, using the striking mise-en-scene and confusing spatiality of the mansion to great surreal effect. It reminded me of The Shining, which uses a similar effect in the geographical discrepancies of the Hotel to maintain a sense of isolation and discomfort. We follow Doctor Génessier as he arrives in the dark, obscured cellar of the mansion, his arrival greeted only by the endless barking and howling of the dogs. He then slowly begins to ascend through the levels of the house; at first quite foreboding with the high windows and cage-like chandelier, and then quite comforting in the final floor of the house, which is soft and serene with its white corridors and crackling fireplace. This is almost a hell to heaven transition, but Christiane's situation is too painful for this to be heavenly. She is locked away like a princess in a tower, and her rescue is not imminent. One of the most singularly beautiful and yet haunting images is the mask she wears to disguise her face. This is a testament to the ability of Edith Scob who has to convey almost entirely through the eyes, the striking emotion of which is painfully juxtaposed against the inhuman stillness of the mask. I wonder how Keanu Reeves would emote if he were to wear a mask like this. When she calls her fiancé (who is believes she is dead) but cannot bring herself to speak is now probably the single greatest silent phone call I've seen, which is refreshing because the call-but-not-a-call can be an insufferable cliché sometimes. I wish the two Policemen had been given a little more development. There was perhaps a little comedy that could have been found in the veteran/rookie pairing, which could have lightened the load of all the melancholy, if only briefly, but if not that just a little more character to heighten the dramatic value of their investigation a little more. I look to The Exorcist for an interesting secondary story, in which the Policeman character creates a conflict between our need to see him succeed or escape harm and our interests in their MacNeil family and their wellbeing. The eventual plan of the Police in order to ascertain the guilt of Génessier felt a little weak though, as they use a decoy to try and prove their suspicions, yet don't do anything to make sure they are nearby and could intervene if her safety is compromised. But maybe that's just a misguided attempt at trying to suggest 'improvement'. This film is a stunningly poetic look at the longing for identity, a theme which finely presents itself in the characters. Louise, Génessier's assistant, is the only one to have had a successful face transplant, yet despite this sense of self she fails to integrate into society, and instead helps Génessier with his crimes. Her presence is always accompanied by this slightly menacing fairground-esque music, or something echoing a carnival, which is appropriate because she is a freak-show, presenting the dire moral implications of Génessier's pursuit. In the end, Christiane, who like a Snow White, complete with the birds fluttering around her shoulders, is almost beautiful, yet the physical sense of self has not been reconciled with the soul. The eyes are considered windows to the soul, but how much of that soul remains if those eyes are without a face?