![]() ![]() The doctor is aided by a devoted former patient, Louise, played by Alida Valli, an Igor in pearls, whose lifeworn face has lost the freshness of The Third Man, alternately registering motherly kindness as she ensnares fresh victims, dispassionate resolution as she lights a cigarette in preparation to pounce, and the sadness of a deep, subtle, and not-unrecognized insanity. ![]() It must have been goodness-knows how shocking in 1960. The operation, when we see it, is truly unsettling, in part for the slow, tense, medical precision with which it is presented and conducted. But he remains best – indeed, frequently only – known for his masterpiece, Les yeux sans visage, infusing with a melancholic poetry the dime-store tale (by Boileau-Narcejac) of a renowned doctor whose daughter has lost her face in a car wreck, and whose repeated attempts at transplanting her a new one are doomed to failure. Georges Franju has remained a marginal figure in film history, despite being a pal of Henri Langlois and playing an integral part in the establishment of the Cinémathèque française, directing a highly acclaimed (and suppressed) slaughter-house documentary short, Le sang des bêtes in 1949, and becoming a key figure on the festival circuit with piercing, poetic features like Le tête contre les murs (1959) and Thomas l’imposteur (1965). ![]()
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