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Quote:
Defintely the highlight of the series.
__________________ "Give me grain or give me death!" |
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Eyes without a face Dr Genessier is a seemingly ordinary surgeon with narcissism issues who has gone a little bonkers. His daughter has been horribly disfigured in a car accident. In a bid to make her beautiful once more he has his secretary, and greatest surgical achievement (played by the Terrific Alida Valli) go out into the streets of Paris and hunt candidates suitable for the skin grafts needed to make his daughter beautiful once more. All the while his eerily masked daughter (played in an astonishing physical performance by Edith Scob) is going slowly insane. From the opening scenes of Valli driving through the French countryside to Maurice Jarre's surreal and ever so deliberately off key carnival-esque music, through to the bloody and poetic final scenes, Eyes is a well crafted piece of surrealistic horror that carefully shifts from graphic realism that shocked audiences of the time to almost abstract strangeness that seems crafted to poke fun at conventional film tropes. The daughters leading man boyfriend is relegated to a bit part plot point while the film focuses more on the strange and ever more f*** up world of the Dr and his 'family'. It's a film well, well ahead of its time that still plays well today and is probably Franju's best work (judex coming a close second) The inspirations on directors such as Mario Bava, Jean Rollin and others is readily apparent. Hell, Jess Franco spent a large portion of his career revisiting this film. The BFI's blu-ray looks absolutely stunning and comes highly reccomended. |
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It is a masterpiece and shows what a great year 1960 was for horror, with Psycho, Peeping Tom and Eyes Without A Face. I watched it years ago when Mark Kermode recommended it when it first came to DVD and thought it was astonishing due to George Franju's clinical and almost documentary-style direction, the performances and the incredible – for the time – SFX make-up. Kermode has just done one of his Uncut blogs about it: I don't know if it's on the new Blu-ray, but The Blood of the Beasts (Le Sang des bĂȘtes) documentary which is on the BFI DVD is remarkable and horrific in equal measures.
__________________ Last edited by Nosferatu@Cult Labs; 28th August 2015 at 08:19 AM. |
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