‘Eyes Without a Face’ Is a Horrific Quest for Identity [The Lady Killers Podcast]

“My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.”

Does appearance create identity or is it the other way around? How do we show our true selves to the world and what happens when that image is taken away? In short, are we still the same person when wearing a mask? On the surface, this seems like an obvious question, but Georges Franju’s 1960 film Eyes Without a Face causes us to dig a little bit deeper. What power does a face have to project identity and can we steal that identity from someone else? 

Franju’s film opens in the midst of a crime. Louise (Alida Valli) is a glamorous woman with an elegant pearl choker who drags a dead body into the river. She does this at the behest of Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), a transplant and graft specialist desperate to find a new face for his disfigured daughter Christiane (Edith Scob). Unable to find willing donors, they’re kidnapping and drugging young women in order to surgically remove the valuable tissue and grafting these stolen faces onto Christiane. But is this cycle of violence emotionally sustainable and can they continue to hide a growing pile of bodies?

In the latest episode of Bloody FM’s The Lady Killers Podcast, co-hosts Jenn Adams, Sammie Kuykendall, and Mae Shults are joined by special guest Joshua Conkel to dissect the complex themes of this stunning film. Is Eyes Without a Face an early example of New French Extremity? What drives Louise to kill for Dr. Génessier? Why does Christiane release those dogs and what’s up with that perplexing score? They’ll try to survive that harrowing surgery scene while exploring the terror of Dr. Génessier’s world. 

Stream below and subscribe now via Apple Podcasts and Spotify for future episodes that drop every Thursday.

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