Eyes Without a Face

Georges Franju's perverse 1959 French horror film is at once lyrical, haunting, and deviant—an elegant classic of sadism and shadowy grace. Famed plastic surgeon Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), wracked with guilt over disfiguring his once-lovely daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), in a car wreck, lures young women to his secluded mansion with the help of his mistress, Louise (Alida Valli), in order to perform brutal, bloody experiments upon them, sacrificing their beauty and lives to restore Christiane's face. Christiane wanders like a lost fawn through the house, her scarred visage hidden behind a blank mask that exposes only her sad, lonely eyes, and as each attempted skin graft fails, she slips further into despair and disconnection. Franju employs Génessier's sadistic undertakings to create an eerie poetry reminiscent of Jean Cocteau's fantasy imagery, culminating in an astonishingly brutal yet beautiful finale. Previously available on DVD, Eyes Without a Face has been newly remastered and debuts on Blu-ray, with extras including Franju's 1949 short documentary “Blood of the Beasts” (looking at Paris slaughterhouses), new and archival interviews, excerpts from a 1985 documentary on the film's screenwriters (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac), and a booklet with essays. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)