Athens International Film Festival
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Eyes Without a Face

Despite popular prejudice, which refused to take the horror genre seriously at the time, Franju turns the ingredients of a cheap b-movie into high art, expressing his concerns about the limitations of science and radically renewing Gothic mythology with a bizarre hybrid of horror, science fiction, melodrama and film noir.

A distinguished surgeon (Pierre Brasseur) abducts and mangles young women as involuntary organ donors in a desperate attempt to restore his beautiful daughter’s face (Edith Scob), who was deformed in a car accident he was responsible for. Dead to the world and forced to endure crimes committed in the name of her own salvation, she wanders around their mirrorless mansion like a ghost, her face concealed with an expressionless mask.

Despite popular prejudice, which refused to take the horror genre seriously at the time, Franju turns the ingredients of a cheap b-movie into high art, expressing his concerns about the limitations of science and radically renewing Gothic mythology with a bizarre hybrid of horror, science fiction, melodrama and film noir.

Deeply influential, the French filmmaker’s masterpiece merges Jean Cocteau’s poetry with the horror of an exploitation film, featuring one of the most beautiful finales in the history of fantasy cinema. Th.P.


les yeaux sans visage / μάτια χωρίς πρόσωπο... από NyxtesPremieras

Εναλλακτικοί τίτλοι / Alternative titles: Eyes Without a Face / Les yeux sans visage

Σκηνοθεσία / Director: Georges Franju

Σενάριο / Screenwriters: Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Jean Redon, Claude Sautet

Φωτογραφία / DoP: Eugen Shuftan

Μουσική / Music: Maurice Jarre

Μοντάζ / Editor: Gilbert Natot

Ηθοποιοί / Principal Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault

Γαλλία, Ιταλία / France, Italy
1960
Ασπρόμαυρο / B&W
88'
Γαλλικά / French

* Screens on 25th September



    Publication date: 2013-09-11 12:30:00

    Georges Franju: Behind the Mask

    Georges Franju: Behind the Mask

    Shadowman

    Shadowman

    Once again, Georges Franju embraces his influences by Louis Feuillade's silent movie series and retro pop culture (Feuillade's grandson Jacques Champreux is back on screenwriting duty), propelling them to new and unprecedented heights of eccentricity.

    Thomas the Impostor

    Thomas the Impostor

    Balancing lyricism and realism, the director illustrates the war-ravaged landscape as an arena of absolute absurdity, full of hollow delusions and unfulfilled fantasies, where innocence is doomed to crash and burn into the harsh reality.

    Judex

    Judex

    Enigmatic avenger Judex kidnaps a corrupt banker on a quest for justice on behalf of his victims and then takes his innocent daughter under his wing to protect her from her father's demonic mistress.

    Thérèse Desqueyroux

    Thérèse Desqueyroux

    True to the spirit of Claude Mauriac's novel, Franju transports the viewer to the asphyxiating atmosphere surrounding Therese, inspiring compassion for his enigmatic heroine, whose extreme reactions and self-destructive trajectory play as a personal revolution against hypocrisy, in a society that's in a hurry to brand anyone who doesn't fit the norms as an outcast.