Director of Eyes Without a Face, Georges Franju

"Franju is the author of the greatest film of the genre, Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face). Perfection of the script, of the actors, of the light, of everything. I was haunted during many, many years by the end, Edith Scob walking in the park with her face covered by the white mask, and the white birds and that music...I have tried to find that atmosphere of dream, poetry and madness in many of my films."

Director Jean (Requiem for a Vampire, Fascination, Two Orphan Vampires) Rollin on Eyes Without a Face

Director Georges Franju's legendary Eyes Without a Face (AKA The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, Les Yeux Sans Visage, 1959) remains an unshakable movie experience forty plus years after its initial release. This little nightmare of a movie has a way of getting under the skin like few others, and as my man Jean Rollin can attest to - the ending will haunt you with its uncanny mixture of horror and melancholy.

Franju keeps you off guard right from the get go as we follow Alida Valli in her car. She readjusts her rearview mirror to reveal what seams to be a man, covered in a trenchcoat with fedora pulled down. Valli's expression is that of alarm but continues driving until she surprisingly drags the body from the car and dumps it in water!

We learn that Valli works for a Professor Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), an acclaimed surgeon looking for the fountain of youth through skin grafting. It seems the Professor has recently lost his daughter and when a body is discovered washed up he quickly identifies it and the burial begins. In reality his daughter Catherine, played with a ballet-like quality by Edith Scob, lives in her fathers house waiting for him to fix her horrifically scarred face. A car accident, resulting from her fathers aggressive driving, has left her with the titles predicament - eyes without a face.

The Professor practices various grafting techniques on the poor howling dogs he keeps locked up in medieval looking kennels. When a breakthrough occurs he has his secretary abduct beautiful girls from the city and bring them back to his hidden laboratory for - gulp - brutal facelifts! For a black and white film crafted in 1959, the surgery scene packs a disgusting punch as the doctor shockingly (and in graphic detail) cuts sinew and slowly peels a face off in brutally realistic fashion! Even more sickening than the violence of the scene is the fact that the professor, secretary and daughter are all coconspirators.

The result of the Professors work turns out miraculous, his daughter is once again beautiful. He schemes to acquire a new identity for Catherine (the girl he operated on is grotesquely kept alive until she flips out and launches herself to her death!), but a slight blemish on her new face reveals that all is not well. In a brilliant piece of filmmaking we see the revolting deterioration of the new face through snapshots in which the Professor narrates, in a detached doctor tone. This is one of the more heartbreaking and disturbing scenes you're likely to encounter.

The Professor remains determined to fix her face yet Catherine, floating about the house in a disquieting white mask, begins to feel the weight of their sins and wants nothing more than to perish. I wouldn't dare give away the ending - if you haven't seen it, you are missing one of the true greats of cinema.