Very well executed

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Viewed on DVD. Production design = eight (8) stars. Director Hiroshi Teshigahara has created a Japanese film all but devoid of Japanese content (except for Japanese actresses and actors). Instead, the Director has tried (with varying degrees of success) to duplicate many famous (often bizarre) scenes from contemporary European (mostly French and Italian) movies and strung them together like beads on a second-hand necklace. To say that Teshigahara is obsessed with faces would be an understatement! (He also seems to have a bit of a thing for ears.) The plot is focused (more or less) on constructing an experimental latex mask (with some atypical properties) for the victim of an apparent industrial accident, and the impacts from wearing same. The mask is created by a "plastic surgeon" (with skills indistinguishable from a talented movie make-up artist) who also fancies himself an amateur psychologist and philosopher (and spouts corresponding lines of mumble-jumble dialog). Also tossed in are: groups of faces (from a grid of several dozen mug shots to scenes of a faceless street crowd of extras all sporting tight-fitting paper bags covering their heads); an attractive woman with half her faced badly scared (apparently the result of atomic bomb exposure); women applying makeup "to become humble"; and a selection of close-up facial expressions associated with various emotions. And to cover a few more bases, the Director injects incest, suicide, cuckolding by the cuckolded, the importance of odor, fun with a yo-yo, and on, and on. The film's closing scenes are (more or less) meaningless. Acting is pretty good despite much repetitious dialog between the principal male protagonists. Actress Kyôko Kishida's performance is outstanding. Once again she demonstrates why she is the most talented, consistently exciting, and attractive Japanese screen actress of the 1960's. The real star of this film, however, is the designer of the stunning medical lab set (Masao Yamazaki?). Not only does it look ahead of its time, but also today (50 years later) it still looks to be from far into the future! (Walls are transparent with no visible means of support and covered with see-through medical charts and abstracts of art artifacts. Plus lots of chrome and stainless steel accents. Instruments and lighting (and everything else) are wireless.) Cinematography (narrow screen, black & white) is fine despite using an antique process (due to budget constraints?). There are numerous in-camera effects. Lighting is okay; consistency of inter-scene lighting is good. Subtitles are fine. Music consists of an orchestral waltz played under the opening credits and musical like sounds heard here and there. After you have savored the medical lab set (conveniently, most of these scenes are clustered together), hit your player's eject button and move on. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

I have just watched "The face of another" twice, and am still feeling the reverberations of it's meaning. The emotional/psychological insights of Abe and Teshigahara, spoken through the characters of Okuyama and the psychiatrist, will give you more than enough to ponder. What are we in relationship to others if we are faceless; characterless? How are we to measure ourselves if our experience has no relativity to the world outside? Right from the beginning, the film establishes it's goal of revealing, heartbreakingly, the insecurity of the individual. Okuyama tries hard to laugh at his fate but the truth of his dependence on acceptance wears him thin and forces his well meaning wife and colleagues to the brink of their own prejudices. Tatsuya Nakadai, perfectly takes Okuyama from voluntary, shamed exile to hiding in plain sight, seeming to miss how that transformation might have occurred. While Mikijiro Hira goes for the ride, with a scientists abandon for the experiment, despite his very clear understanding of the pitfalls of invisibility.There is a small story within the larger one, that of a young girl whose face, on one side, has been horribly disfigured (the other side is startlingly beautiful) by the bomb at Nagasaki. The first viewing of this left me feeling that this section was curious but disjointed. The second viewing had me considering, a bit more, some of the accompanying imagery that we see in these scenes. What really stands out are the images of soldiers in an asylum, the fire range and the strangely pictorial images of her and her brother at the beach. There is also her constant fear of another war. I began to see her story as a metaphor for the changing, perhaps now horribly disfigured face, of Japan itself. Coupling this idea with some of the urban crowd scenes in the main story or the body parts in vitrines in the doctor's office I began to feel the two stories weave together.For the avid film lover, this movie is also a treat for the eyes with stunning set designs, doppelgangers, mirrored scenes and well placed, well timed editing twists.A must see!!!

This is a story about a man whose face is badly disfigured in a fire but not his body or hands. Instead of going to a plastic surgeon to have his face restored he goes to a scientist who specializes in plastics. The scientist makes him a plastic face mask which when it is put on is the actual face of the actor. You are never allowed to see the scarred face except for a tiny portion of it.Then the man gets the bright idea to try to seduce his wife with his new face. She knows it's him all the time. He goes nuts and wants to kill his wife but all the doors are locked. He does kill the doctor which might not be a bad idea.As if this is not bad enough there is a sub plot of a beautiful girl whose face is badly blemished on one side. For reassurance she seduces her brother and then commits suicide. Not a bad idea for the entire cast out of embarrassment for a terrible film. This film is so bad it may become a cult film.

movie about self perception and the bond between the mind and the body...soundtrak really set the mood for the increasing horror in the story line. Nakadai downplays his role to give an overall flawless performance. Watch for some really good lines which will undoubtedly force the viewer to start thinking right away which may distract from the plot (but hey, it's an artsy masterpiece right?)...There is a lot of experimentation in the cinematography such as a door which opens and reveals a cluster of hair in ocean tides...this effect serves to foreshadow the action but may in the view of modern audiences comes across as trying TOO hard to be an art film. I left the movie still trying to link the two parallel story lines in the film and you may too...but don't worry you get two stories for the price of one...DO NOT watch this movie in the dark even though there is nothing VISUALLY terrifying it is still a great horror film...