French Cinema

I got up early this morning and watched a French movie. I had read an article about body image earlier in the week and the author mentioned a French horror film, Les Yeux Sans Visage, where body image is taken to an extreme. A doctor's daughter has her face horribly disfigured in a car accident. He is obsessed with returning her to her former beauty.

His assistant searches for beautiful young women in the streets of Paris to replace his daughter's face with. Yes, rather macabre. The daughter has to wear a mask because she can't bear her reflection. Her father is a renowned surgeon and has conducted experiments on grafting. There is a rather gruesome scene where we see the doctor removing the "face" from a second victim. I won't tell too much more for fear of spoiling the story for anyone who may want to watch it.

It's a great little movie, especially since it's from 1959. I enjoyed the music score by Maurice Jarre (Dr. Zhivago). It set the mood for the film. The look of it was also tres cool! Movies from this era beat the blood and guts movies that we get now. Who doesn't remember Saturday afternoon matinees? In the Windsor/Detroit area, kids in my era grew up watching Sir Graves Ghastly on Channel 4. This movie reminded me of those Saturday afternoons.