Faceless: Jesús Franco

The similarities between Jesús Franco's Faceless and Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1960) are unmistakable. Both involve a crazed doctor that kidnaps beautiful women in order to transplant their faces onto a scarred loved one. But whereas Eyes Without a Face displayed a kind of cinematic poetry akin to Jean Cocteau, Franco approached the film as an exploitation piece. That's not necessarily a condemnation, of course. In fact, Faceless is one of Franco's most technically astute and accomplished films. The film follows plastic surgeon Dr. Flamand and his assistant/lover Nathalie as they steal the faces from beautiful women for his sister/lover Ingrid who was accidentally mutilated with acid by a disgruntled ex-patient. In the true tradition of Italian exploitation, a Nazi doctor and a mentally-handicapped assistant/rapist also become part of their schemes. Faceless also does a decent job juggling its primary story with a subplot concerning an American private detective hired to track down one of Flamand's victims. It's not uncommon for such films to have subplots, of course. But they very rarely manage to incorporate them without making them seem like they came from an entirely different movie. Some of the special effects are decent, as well. Although, in all fairness, one of the effects where a woman's face is removed is particularly amateurish. But, overall, Faceless is one of Franco's better efforts.

6/10