Eyes without a face (1959) - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

So, back to working my way through my backlog of reviews.  I'm having an online hiatus of sorts to re-balance how I spend my time, so hopefully, once I get caught up, less time spent generally online, should mean my reviews 'mostly' come in on time.  Slowly, slowly catchy monkey!  :)

So, a movie from 1959?  Any reader will know my love of old movies.  Ok, there are the few hidden gems, but for the most part, they're a waste of my already precious downtime with my family, hence my lack of patience for them.  This movie?   Even writing this, I have yet to make up my mind.... I left it a couple of days to sink in and still, I'm left with a hmmmmmm.

So, to a premis.  The movie follows the efforts of Dr Génessier (a well known and respected plastic surgeon) and his ridiculously loyal assistant (and a bit more) Louise, as they search for a young women with similar features and colouring to Dr Génessiers daughter Christiane.  The reason?  Christiane has been involved in a car accident, where unfortunately the dear doctor is most definately to blame.  She has suffered terrible scarring to her face and her only hope of ever regaining an acceptable appearance is if someone could carry out... I don't know.... a face transplant.  Coincidentally, Christianes father just so happens to be involved with a procedure called heterografing, where tissue is transferred from a donor to a host.  The main issue being that both subjects need to be alive to complete the procedure.... now I don't know many people who would be happy having their face transplanted when they still need it, so herein we find the problem.

So, we return to the start of our premis and the reason Dr Génessier and Louise are seeking a young women who may match Christianes appearance - daddy-dearest is trying to make right his horrific recklessness.  The previous paragraph may also go somewhat to explaining the reasons for Louises loyalty in the face of something so unethical.

I don't really want to say any more as to what happens and if they are successful.  I think the above is more than enough to go on to have you decide if you want to see the movie.

My viewpoints?  First off the positives - I loved the story.  Great idea and brilliantly creepy.  I was quite surprised by how graphic is was in places.   The cinematography went from quite humdrum for the most part, to surreal in places and finally to striking and poignant in a few scenes.  The performances were nothing special as far as I was concerned.  There were a few scenes were I forgot how dated and stilted the dialogue was, so I suppose that means there were places which weren't too bad.   This is a concept I loved, so I would be keen to see a remake of Eyes without a face.  Weighing everything up, I think I have to give this one a 'Recommended'.