Eyes Without A Face is a film that will stay with you for a long long time. It is a film that is as deeply layered as it is deeply disturbing, and is a beautifully shot as it is extremely gory (especially since it came out in 1960).
The film follows a brilliant surgeon who kidnaps young women and surgically removes their faces in order to try to graft them onto his daughter who lost her face in a car accident.
The plot is kept fairly simple in order to make room for the characters who are all unique, complex, and sympathetic. The doctor (Pierre Brasseur) has times where he is as scary as movie characters get, but there are scenes where he has moments of true tenderness. In fact, a scene of him talking to a young boy in a hospital was the only scene cut from the original U.S. debut because it made him too sympathetic. He even shows remorse for the things he has done stating "I've done so much wrong to perform this miracle."
The disfigured daughter (Edith Scob) is very complex in that she feels grief for her own disfigurement while feeling terrible about the girls who are loosing their lives in order to restore her face. She even rejects her temporary mask, not wanting to conceal what she has become.
While the performances and characters are great, the real star of the film is the striking visuals (especially the closing shot). The film is lit beautifully in ways that are reminiscent of both film noir and early german expressionism. The semi surrealist sets add to the striking beauty of the film.
Eyes Without a Face is a film that not only has stood the test of time, but is finding a bigger appreciation now that when it was first released.
If you want to watch the film(as you should) it can be found on IMDB for free
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