Eyes Without a Face (1960) & Historical Allegory

     Georges Franju’s Les Yeux sans visage (1960) follows the story of esteemed surgeon, Dr. Génessier, living on the outskirts of Paris. With the help of his faithful assistant Edna, he seeks to recreate the face of his daughter Christiane by abducting, murdering, and transferring the faces of young French women onto Christiane. Christiane, who has been presumed dead in the car accident that permanently scarred her, spends her days hidden in her family’s estate, wearing a mask to hide her hideous face, as she slowly realizes that her father will never be able to permanently give her a face. Eventually, Christiane comes to terms with the misery of her existence and frees the latest young woman her father has abducted, and the hunting dogs being kept in the basement, who then proceed to tear Dr. Génessier to shreds. With that, Christiane disappears into the night.

Christiane, in all her cinematic glory.

     This review comes off what is only my second viewing of Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, but this watch only supplemented and reinforced my original thoughts on the film. I appreciate Eyes Without a Face as both a horror, but also as a tragedy, which is expounded upon by film studies professor Adam Lowenstein in his book, Shocking Representation, in which he explores how the film grapples with traumatic histories. I myself, as a history major, am always fascinated by works that seek to explain or represent horrific events or histories that are otherwise unapproachable- one that comes to mind most immediately, especially in relation to the Holocaust, is Art Spiegelman’s comic Maus. Of course, Eyes Without a Face is an allegorical text, whereas Maus is a pseudo-biography, making it a much different beast to tackle.

Christiane tries to contact the outside world.

From The Battle of Algiers (1966).

     But that’s not to say allegory can’t be effective: films such as Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), District 9 (2009), and The Fly (1986), come to mind. Eyes Without a Face, I believe, operates on the same level as these films, and is full of imagery closely related to the Holocaust. The film was released in 1960, at a difficult, and contradictory historical moment in France. Just decades after the end of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust, France found itself try to reassert its failing grip on its’ military colony in Algeria. The Algerian War, which saw France’s use of brutally violent counter-insurgency tactics, put France in an uncomfortably hypocritical position, widely criticized by French citizens (and the world). By exploring and representing the historical trauma of an event such as the Holocaust, Georges Franju hoped to reassert the horror of violent oppression in France's national psyche. 

Dr. Génessier prepares for a face transplant.

     One of the connections that I find exceptionally apt is that Génessier’s experiments portray him as a Joseph Mengele-like figure.

One of the doctor's victims.

The operation.

     First, to associate the two (though a cinematic surgery and the actual Mengele experiments are truly incomparable) gives a much greater weight to the film. To “replay” a traumatic history such as this is a difficult pill to swallow, but it lends legitimacy to those who suffered, for the fundamental frameworks for any histories are centered around whose stories we tell. Lowenstein warns that “The allegorical encounter with historical trauma entails an opening out to complex and often contradictory representations…” (Lowenstein, 50). While it’s healthy to be cautious around any kind of text, especially film, that seeks to interact with history, these “complex representations” spark important debate and consideration that can be critical to discovering new ways of thinking about the past. Just as Lowenstein identifies the issue of the feminine agent, Edna, as the one who seemingly carries out violence against other women, he concludes that this is related to the frailty of Génessier/Mengele’s masculinity, and the desire to hide his inadequacies through the employment of a surrogate. Working through these issues is inherently productive.

With incredibly high-contrast lighting, this shot is straight out of a melodrama.

     A critical moment in the film is Génessier’s discovery that even under the best circumstances, he will never permanently repair Christiane’s face. Shortly after his most successful transplant, Christiane’s face begins deteriorating and rotting. Instead of dramatically revealing Christiane’s decaying features, Franju chooses to give us this exposition through a series of still frames, documenting the decay over a period of weeks, while Génessier gives a voice-over. This documentarian and detached style is highly cognizant of the style of photographs and documentaries and that served as the first exposés of concentration camps, such as Night & Fog (1956). It’s unsurprising (and incredibly effective) that in his allegorical horror-text, Franju would choose to utilize historical realism in lieu of shock-tactics to convey his horror.

Christiane's transformation.

     I also deeply appreciate that Eyes Without a Face is not a horror film that fetishizes, or rather, romanticizes its’ frightening aspects. Unlike other monster movies of the 1950s and 60s, there are no clearly defined monsters, only victims, and perpetrators (yes, the creatures of these films are sometimes victims, but they are dramatically “monster-ized,” and fetishized). Clearly, Christiane is a victim, but it’s more complicated than that.

Christiane considers her fate. Again, the influence of melodrama.

Not the exact shot, but this is the painting.

     In her role, she exists partially between the living and the dead with no real agency or mobility- her facial scars (and Génessier) have condemned her to this fate. For all intents and purposes, Christiane died in that car accident. Nonetheless, her father hopes to “bring her back” to the living by means of more death and reconstruction, but it’s an impossible task. One extremely poignant shot frames Christiane, wearing her mask, in front of a large portrait of herself with her true face. Looming over her is the picturesque ideal that will never be. This viewing cemented Eyes Without a Face as one of my favorite horror movies- it works for me on a purely narrative and aesthetic level, but also functions as an insightful and important allegorical text for traumatic histories.

-Nick, March 17, 2018, 10:34 pm, from a hotel room in London, England.