The second feature that I chose to dissect in my 1960s horror retrospective was brought to realisation by French surrealist director, Georges Franju. Eyes Without A Face projects the tale of a surgeon transfixed with guilt following an accident that leaves his daughter horrifically scarred. Now Doctor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is consumed with restoring the face of Christine (Edith Scob) going to drastic measures to achieve his goal.

What marks this film as a significant entry into the horror genre is partly down to this obsessive and compulsive desire to recapture beauty and innocence. The extent that Doctor Génessier goes to in both his experimentation on animals, and then through kidnapping, torturing and eventually killing female victims in order to fulfil this requirement is an empty and void enterprise which will only lead to ruin. The self-reproach that propels him is so wrapped up in fantasy, that he slowly spirals into madness and drifts further and further away from reality. His fate is sealed and ironically innocence remains intact with his daughter left to immerse in nature, away from society’s constrictions. She even carries a dove with her to over-amplify this metaphor. 

As with The Flesh and the Fiend, Eyes Without A Face also initially suffered at the box office, struggling to contain a story built around containing the gore (blood), animal cruelty, and mad scientists in order to avoid censorship across Europe. This a tough trick to pull off as the source material, a novel by Jean Redon, (bearing the same name as the film) is filled with these themes throughout. 

The response was initially a sour one with the exception of the homegrown audience in France, who were compelled by its unique storyline. It wasn’t until the mid 80s when it was re-released theatrically that it started to receive the recognition that it deserved. It has since gone on to be considered a classic and placed quite high in Time Out’s Top 100 Horror Movies as voted by people working in the horror industry.

What also elevates the haunting images and the subject of isolation in the pursuit of idealism, is the musical score composed by the great Maurice Jarre, who also worked on classic features such as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Here, the music has a juxtaposition of representation through upbeat and jovial affair to one of melancholy. It is a triumph and supports the film’s own tumultuous confliction.

– Saul Muerte