Was anybody besides me creeped out…
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kathiemoffett — 18 years ago(August 25, 2007 11:02 PM)
Bingo. I could scarcely believe my eyes.
I actually found myself wishing I could see the look on my old film professor's face when he heard, and if I knew his email address I'd have sent him the news item. He was Belgian himself, and he LOVED Franju. Such an irreverent bastard, tooI'm sure he had a good chuckle, to say the least. I sure wish Franju had lived to see his story come true, albeit with a somewhat happier endingso far, anyway.
Being that this is such a notorious movie, I was a little surprised no article about the transplant mentioned it.
What tripped me out most is that the woman who had the real life transplant actually REALLY resembled an older, sadder, alcoholic version of the girl in the movie!! Right down to her hair color and cut! And of course the real transplant took place in France, and this is a French movie. Just file this one in the 'couldn't be weirder' file! lol -
Flight_of_Fantasy — 15 years ago(February 05, 2011 02:00 PM)
I hadn't seen the film when that happened, but when I finally saw the movie yesterday I immediately thought of the woman in France.
shudder
"That woman has a feminist agenda. Tell her to get in the wallpaper that's in the kitchen." -
agera — 14 years ago(April 15, 2011 06:06 PM)
No, I wasn't creeped out at all by the news of real life facial transplant surgery.
For me, the creepiness of the movie in is the doctor's obsessive and domineering personality, not in his daughter's deformity. It's clear that he is the truly ugly person, despite his normal appearance and that his daughter is a beautiful person inside, despite her disfigurement.
I've seen pics of faces horribly disfigured and I think for such persons, a facial transplant is the only real hope of being able to lead a more normal life; i.e., going out in public without concealing their disfigurement.
"The night was sultry." -
Nick_Jones — 14 years ago(April 16, 2011 01:09 PM)
I don't think of the doctor as an ugly person, but as a man who has lost sight of his empathy, compassion and humanity for other people out of love for his daughter.
When there is no more room in Hell,
The Devil
will reapply to the Zoning Commission. -
agera — 14 years ago(April 19, 2011 11:40 AM)
Good point and thanks for your reply. But I think the doctor is motivated more by his own professional vanity and pride than by concern for his daughter; that is, he sees her deformity and her body's rejection of the faces as a reflection on his ability.
But yes, he's lost sight of his own humanity and the humanity of others. To me, that makes him ugly. I think of this movie as a weird inversion of "Beauty and the Beast". The daughter, who has a "beastly" deformity, is nevertheless beautiful in spirit and her father is the one who is the real beast.
Or maybe I just feel over-protective of Christiane. She is one of the most enchanting female character in movies.
"The night was sultry." -
Nick_Jones — 14 years ago(April 19, 2011 12:35 PM)
Enchanting indeed. But she
is
pretty handy with a knife herself. Must be an inherited trait.
Seriously, the last shot with her gliding into the forest has to be at least one of the most poetic scenes ever filmed.
When there is no more room in Hell,
The Devil
will reapply to the Zoning Commission. -
agera — 14 years ago(September 17, 2011 11:04 AM)
But she is pretty handy with a knife herself. Must be an inherited trait.
Well, but she
was
cooped up all by herself with not much to do. I'm not surprised she honed her knife skills. She probably got a lot of reading done, too, maybe even some bird-watching.
Ah, that last scene. She is so gorgeous gliding into the forest, as you say. I've never been affected by any other film the way this one affected me.
"The night was sultry." -
Nick_Jones — 14 years ago(September 17, 2011 12:41 PM)
There is an end scene in a 1930s film of A Midsummer's Night Dream that is equally eerie and poetic. I'll have to look it up; I do know that James Cagney played Bottom, and I think the director's name was Max Rienhardt. Oh yeah, Puck was played by Mickey Rooney.
When there is no more room in Hell,
The Devil
will reapply to the Zoning Commission. -
Nick_Jones — 14 years ago(September 17, 2011 12:52 PM)
I got the name of the movie and the director wrong, but here it is:
http://www.imdb.com/board/10026714/
When there is no more room in Hell,
The Devil
will reapply to the Zoning Commission. -
agera — 14 years ago(September 18, 2011 08:39 AM)
I've seen that movie but I was very young and frankly, don't remember the ending. I mainly remember James Cagney in it, I'm sorry to say.
But Max Reinhardt was very influential. (I just googled him and almost 70 years after his death, there were 500,000 hits.) I'll have to watch that film again, thanks for the recommendation.
Edited to add: OK. I cheated a little bit and found the ending on YouTube.
Here is is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTeQDMfq8Gw&feature=channel_video_t itle
WOW. It is gorgeous and very magical. I love the use of Mendelssohn's Overture.
But part of why I love the ending of
Eyes Without a Face
is its poignance. Christine has finally been released from her father's imprisonment, if not from all her suffering. Somehow the girl so like a fragile swan has found the strength to stop her father from committing terrible crimes and has freed herself and the animals. But yes, just on the visuals alone,
A Midsummer Night's Dream
is the equal of
Eyes Without a Face
. Again, thanks for reminding me of it.
"The night was sultry." -
agera — 14 years ago(September 18, 2011 11:10 PM)
Picnic at Hanging Rock
has a good ending, not quite in the league of the two movies we discussed but good.
And
Repulsion
has an ending that is famously chilling.
Have you seen these? If not, you might enjoy them.
"The night was sultry." -
Nick_Jones — 14 years ago(September 19, 2011 01:40 PM)
Unfortunately, the scene I was thinking of is NOT the end of the movie. I'll have to check the rest of the YouTube clips to see if they have it, or rent it from Netflix to find the time when it happens. A 35+ y.o. memory is NOT the most reliable of resources.
In any case, the scene I remember(?)is Oberon flying off into the moonlight with the Indian Prince, his cape floating lazily behind him. I'm wondering if it would be as impressive now, since I saw it back in my college days of, shall we say, herbal experimentation?
When there is no more room in Hell,
The Devil
will reapply to the Zoning Commission. -
agera — 14 years ago(September 20, 2011 10:58 AM)
Unfortunately, the scene I was thinking of is NOT the end of the movieIn any case, the scene I remember(?)is Oberon flying off into the moonlight with the Indian Prince, his cape floating lazily behind him. I'm wondering if it would be as impressive now, since I saw it back in my college days of, shall we say, herbal experimentation?
Yes, things "recollected in tranquility" often don't shine as brightly as they did when we experienced them in our youth, especially if we experienced them while in an altered state.
Still, I think the ending of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
is very impressive. I love the way it shimmers and dazzles. By the way, I found a website about "old Hollywood" and apparently, the premiere of this movie was a huge social event, THE big event of that particular season. There were some pics of various Hollywood stars and bigwigs arriving for it and I would have posted a link to them, only they were kind of little.
"The night was sultry." -
activista — 9 years ago(August 14, 2016 04:45 AM)
@Nick
Seriously, the last shot with her gliding into the forest has to be at least one of the most poetic scenes ever filmed.
It really is beautiful and poeticin fact, the whole film is like a movingly filmed moody tone poem (with the exception of the brief gore in it, that is.)
And,yeah I remember hearing about the skin transplant graftmaybe the actual surgeons saw the film and were inspired to come up with a new kind of skin graft? Just speculating,lol. -
anthonydavis26 — 14 years ago(September 07, 2011 08:02 PM)
- Contains spoilers *
I struggle to see how she is enchanting or any real moral contrast to her father (except facially, after she has been given another's face for at least the second time, and before that - skin-deep - beauty fades):
We seem led, by her elaborately discovering where Edna is (it appears that she should not be there, and does not know anything about the operating-theatre, although she knows where the dogs are) and - not too intelligently or sensitively - flashing her deformed face at Edna just as she touches her and wakes her up, to the suggestion that she may not have know before how she has been operated on or what tissue has been used.
That scene ends with Edna's scream (we don't know whether that is heard), and there is nothing to indicate what happens afterwards, but just that the surgery has still taken place (I believe that it is a scene of Edna in bed with bandages, leading to her escape and apparent jump (with, I think, another scream, though perhaps Christiane somehow doesn't hear it)).
Whether, somehow, Christiane had not been complicit before, there can be no doubting now that she is fully aware that others are being maimed to benefit her. Even before that, she knows that some earlier victim's body (even if she does not know that she was a victim or the source of her facial graft) has been passed off as her own in burial.
I do not find it convincing that she merely acquiesces in all this because of the strength of her father (her defiance in going off and finding Edna indicates otherwise), that she hides what she knows from herself because it is too awful to believe, or that her prying, as we are told, and finding her own death notice (or the order of service of her own funeral) really serves any useful purpose than confirming what the sharp-witted will already have surmised.
Certainly, she moves as if she is some higher being, but she is no angel, and what she does by releasing the last victim (whatever will then happen to her), and letting the dogs and then doves out does not turn her into the carefree creature walking away from us with a bird on her finger that she appears.
- Contains spoilers *
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PoppyTransfusion — 12 years ago(May 21, 2013 01:21 PM)
@anthonydavis26
Yes Christiane is an interesting character. She seems not to possess the fervour or appetite that her father and Louisa have for finding appopriate faces for transplant, although even Louisa has her limits. Yet she does free Paulette and the dogs and birds.
Perhaps the error was in ever thinking her angelic, as her father suggests she looks at one point. She's a young woman with passions and maybe vanity even. We don't know when or how she learnt where the faces for transplant came from. I wondered about Louisa's face who did that belong to before?
The dress she wears at the end suggests angel but it's eerie and discomforting also, as was seeing her sitting on a couch in the operating theatre when her father was interrupted after drawing the outline on Paulette's face.
Keep silent unless what you are going to say is more important than silence.