Eyes Without a Face.

Review #2282: Eyes Without a Face.

Cast: 

Pierre Brasseur (Doctor Génessier), Alida Valli (Louise), Juliette Mayniel (Edna Grüber), Alexandre Rignault (Inspector Parot), Béatrice Altariba (Paulette Mérodon), François Guérin (Jacques Vernon), and Édith Scob (Christiane Génessier) Directed by Georges Franju.

Review: 

Sure, you need a horror movie with a different view sometimes. This was a film that was called "in a minor genre" as if it was a critique. The director of the film even called it as one with a "quieter mood than horror...horror in homeopathic doses", while one of its starts called it a "fantastique film" (what she refers to is a term used by the French that mostly refers to a realistic framework of a story that happens to have the supernatural involved to go along with hesitation about its existence). Well, a tale of anguish involving face swapping alongside isolation sure seems like horror to me, and so here we are featuring a French movie that had a scene harrowing enough to have a few people faint when they saw it for themselves. The movie is adapted from the novel of the same name that had been written by Jean Redon. The movie had its dialogue done by Pierre Gascar while the film was adapted by Jean Redon, Claude Sautet, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac; the latter two were known as crime fiction writers that had seen plenty of their works adapted into film (most notably Les Diaboliques [1955]) to go along with occasional screenwriting such as here. The movie was directed by a documentarian-turned-feature director in Franju, who had co-formed the Cinématheque Française; his first feature had been Head Against the Wall in 1958. The film was made with careful precision as to not rile up the censors in its native France Americans did see the film, albeit with a different approach, because Lopert Pictures showed it as part of a doubleheader with The Manster...and re-titled the film as "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus" while editing the film down (so yes, the grafting scene was trimmed...along with a scene of a doctor caring for a kid at the clinic - go figure). The reputation of the film has been considerably higher (to say the least) in the six decades since its release.

Admittedly, it is a pretty lyrical type of horror film, one that lures you in pretty quickly with an eerie atmosphere that looks and feels like elegant dread. It respects its audience enough for 90 minutes to carry its drama with patience before one gets that fateful sequence that pretty much dominates the discussion. You really can't hype up a sequence quite like this one (in the horror sense, I mean), you just have to see it for yourself when it comes to making an unsettling sequence that really does unsettle you. The sequence where the face undergoes a process of acceptance/rejection is a close second in quiet unnerving terror. The movie was shot by Eugen Schüfftan, who actually was quite famed as a cinematographer because of the special effect he created that bears his name (involving a mirror covering part of the camera view), most notably with his work in Metropolis (1927); simply put, it is a pretty stark film to view by an old pro. Scob has the toughest job as the one with a mask on their face for most of the film, which she handles with the right sense of tragic grace. Brasseur sells the tragic nature of all-consuming guilt and devotion with the dignity required, as opposed to going for the mad scientist routine, because really it isn't too far removed from say, Frankenstein when it comes to trying to defy the moral line of flesh and man. The finale resolves itself with that delicate sort of balance that comes with unsettling peace in the cold night. In general, one can approach the film however they like when it comes to unsettling features that has one absorbing what they just saw and heard and having to think about it for quite a while after the fact.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Less than two weeks to Halloween but the fun doesn't stop there, the slate for the days ahead includes killer spawn, dolls, vampires, and maybe even a bedeviled doubleheader...

Liliom (1934).

Review #2066: Liliom (1934).

Cast: 

Madeleine Ozeray (Julie/Her Daughter with Liliom), Charles Boyer (Liliom), Robert Arnoux (Strong Arm), Roland Toutain (Sailor), Pierre Alcover (Alfred), Alexandre Rignault (Hollinger), Raoul Marco (Detective), Antonin Artaud (Knife Grinder), Maximilienne (Madame Menoux), and Florelle (Madame Moscat) Directed by Fritz Lang (#333 - M, #500 - Metropolis, #1365 - Scarlet Street, #1619 - Destiny, #2009 - You and Me)

Review: 

Remember Liliom (1930)? who can't articulate their emotional feelings for each other beyond a spiritual connection that, well, made for an okay mess from Fox Film Corporation. But what about the other Liliom film, done for Fox within their "Europa" company in French? The only possible curiosity to watching a film that came out just four years after someone already made their production for Fox Film Corporation is the fact that Fritz Lang also apparently liked the film most among the ones he made. He was quoted a couple of years before his death as saying that he always liked it very much and even called it one he almost liked "best of all". You may or may not find what he is talking about here, but you have to remember that this was the film he made between The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) and Fury (1936). Not exactly the easiest competition, although one wonders what the French Catholic clergy thought of those, since they did not like Lang's ideas involving Heaven. If you remember, the Austrian-born director (with Jewish heritage) found that he should leave Germany when the release of the Mabuse film saw bans by the Nazi regime, which actually had offered him an enticing position involving leading a studio. Obviously, he saw better than to do that, for which he left the country for good by the summer of 1933. He first settled in Paris before he eventually moved (and settled) in America after this film became a flop; his next film not directed for English-speaking audiences would not be until 1959. Lang, landing in a studio run by Erich Pommer, was offered the story for this film apparently over the choice of doing another one that involved detectives (that film, called A Man Has Been Stolen [On a volé un homme], was done by Max Ophüls but is now lost). It was written by Robert Liebmann (in adaptation) and Bernard Zimmer (dialogue).

Boyer had cultivated years of stage experience and supporting roles to eventual stardom in the 1930s, although he bounced around productions in Hollywood and his native France for the first number of years, which involved films such as this. He basically dominates the show in the manner you would expect from him, which works so well because of just how much he throws into a role that could have just been sunken by someone playing the role as just a miserable lout. It isn't a role that he is sent to make seem light (far from it, remember the source), and he does the job required in making a pathetic force of knowing unknowingness work within the bounds of a film that isn't exactly too tethered to reality. Ozeray is left with the other challenge that comes with having such a distinct lead presence in playing her role to a delicacy that won't be construed as just a doormat. The Belgian makes a fine case for going with Boyer in the face of what seems to be a foolishly doomed romance, one that only they can understand but can't quite say in clear words as to why they are there with each other. The film does take a deliberate pace within 116 minutes, but once it does settle among the place of gates in heaven and hell, it all comes together for curious viewing, (Rudolph Maté and Louis Nee did the cinematography for the film and do quite well with making the film look about right for whatever sort of "frivolous" level you can accuse Heaven as being depicted). For the film, one really can't just escape what decisions one makes "just like that", and I appreciate the irony set in depicting bureaucracy and even reviewing a clip from earlier in the movie. When it finally dawns upon one to reach back into the Earth after so long only to find themselves talking themselves into a corner, it does ultimately prove rewarding in the weirdest sense to see just how just one little motion can stoke old memories back in the favor of justice. As a whole, it is an odd little affair, but it is told with obvious interest from Lang to deal with life and death in a way that doesn't insult one's time or intelligence in the dealings of fantasy and illusion. It is a solid effort and one that could fit right into the dedicated structure that Lang favored when making films for as long as and effectively as he could for which we have the pleasure of searching for.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Well, you may already have an idea of what August will be all about judging by the title card. Last August dealt with action films and the one before that dealt with anniversaries...so for this August, why not go "Around the World"? That is correct, an entire month dedicated to as many world cinema films as possible, which could go anywhere from Russia to Japan (already a popular country here but you get the idea) to...somewhere new. I can't guarantee a set number, but I'm sure there will be at least ten interesting films to cover for interesting reviews in the month that seems right for such an odd little month. Enjoy.