Great elements seriously hampered by silly ones…
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Elder_Yautija — 14 years ago(December 16, 2011 04:37 AM)
I agree totally with you on point 1.
When they called the young shoplifter back to the station I was like "Nooo, don't tell me they're gonna do that!". I was intrigued as to how they would handle this thing, I thought it could work; and, dammit it would have if they did what a normal police officer would do, which was simply keep an eye on her and on the clinic in general!!
But all they did was send her off to a potentially dangerous place to find out something they wanted to know, without warning her and without giving her any kind of protection! It didn't make any sense, it was quite dumb.
But, as for point 2, I only partially agree; it's true, facial transplant is still very difficult to achieve, sometimes impossible, even with today's technology
;, but then again this is a horror movie, and in horror movies characters are often allowed to achieve the impossible (Seth Brundle and his telepods in "The Fly" could be a good example). So, I forgive Franju for taking on such an implausible plot. -
loma_phantom — 14 years ago(January 11, 2012 04:24 PM)
I just watched this movie and I must say that I loved it. But I agree with the police thing. They just send the girl to her death! Another thing that really bothered me was the second woman, her face bandaged and lipstick on her mouth. At the surgery scene, you can see that the skin was also removed from her mouth!
(I'm sorry for my english) -
lynda618 — 13 years ago(April 11, 2012 03:21 PM)
I totally agree about No. 1. I assumed the police would set a trap and catch the doctor and his assistant in the act. Makes you wonder why they tried to set this scheme up at alljust so she could get a free EEG??
No. 2 does not bother me, because at the time the movie was made no one knew what face transplants would look like (nor even if they were in the realm of the possible). Christiane's unbelievably ethereal beauty (with no scars, swelling, etc.) after the transplant was redeemed, for me, after the slide show indicating that her body had in fact rejected the new face.
I have another question, though: in the next-to-final scene, when her father is about to operate on the last victim, why was Christiane just shown lounging around watching what was going on? You'd think her father would keep her from seeing this, not to mention the problem of a non-sterile person entering an operating room. -
Strazdamonas — 13 years ago(April 24, 2012 09:13 AM)
Actually we have a pretty good technology now. The current transplants are quite well done http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/28/face-transplant-man-richard-norris
And we would have had it 20 years ago if we had no silly taboos about experimenting on human cells.
Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually. -
SloppyJ30 — 13 years ago(June 12, 2012 06:25 AM)
"I got also annoyed by the fact that in the end the dogs passed through Christiane and rushed for the doctor."
A couple of brief but key scenes earlier in the film established that she was affectionate to the dogs, whereas the doc was shown treating them roughly . . not to mention the fact that he's slicing them up for experiments. I had no trouble buying that the dogs recognized friend vs foe. They had an empathy for Christiane; she was a fellow victim. The doc was their tormentor. Thus, he got munched real good.
Great, creepy early yuck-a-ton. I read the essay in the Criterion booklet and it's hilarious today to read how shocked and dismayed the press and film industry was (particularly in France) when this came out. They didn't know whether to poop or go blind.I have meddled with the primal forces of nature and I must atone.
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snagletooth — 13 years ago(November 04, 2012 11:27 AM)
It's not supposed to be perfectly realistic even though the doctor's cold-bloodedness regarding the victims and his perfectionism and technical meticulousness are elements. It's based on a pulp-magazine story and is something of a "Fantastique" story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastique
. A morality tale.
Christiane's face isn't particularly deeply destroyed. The deep tissues (bone, muscles and connective tissue) seem to be mostly intact, so it's the surface layers being replaced. They show it from Edna's hazy perpective:
http://www.dvdclassik.com/V2/img-critiques/Imag-nov10/yeux_sans_visage %2002.jpg
.
There are pictures, behind-the-scenes documentary photos, floating around on the internet that show her damaged face more clearly but I haven't found them again at this time. -
spanishlatam — 13 years ago(March 17, 2013 05:58 PM)
Regarding Point 2) C'mon, if you are seeing a movie of 1960 the first thing to do is to try to forget all the current science technology. The idea is to be open-minded and try to see the movie with 1960-eyes.
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gerrywos — 12 years ago(February 25, 2014 08:20 AM)
I totally agree with point 1,i thought their plan would be to follow the woman after she left hospital,but no,they just leave her make her own way home and dont even tell her much about their "hunch" its ridiculous and ruined the film for me,
as for point 2 i dont mind too much,it is a kinda horror film after all -
william_pnsn — 11 years ago(October 19, 2014 08:20 PM)
Totally agree with your first point. It's the most negligent police work I've ever seen in a movie. Then they basically shrug it off when she leaves and she never shows up at home. I was expecting the police to be waiting outside the hospital to follow them to the doctors house but nope, they were in their office just hanging out. I honestly think you could cut out the cops completely and the movie would be no different.
For your second point, the movie is going for an expressionistic take on the face transplant and what it means. There's actually quite a bit to unpack About its implications, but I think a realistic look at facial transplants would serve to make the film worse instead of better -
lvrepoman — 11 years ago(December 27, 2014 03:02 PM)
We can't put together new people from body parts today but that doesn't keep me from enjoying Frankenstein.
Besides, transplants were all the rage in medicine in in 1960, so the idea wasn't all that big a stretch at the time.
Take away the transplant, and you not only lose the horror, you lose the whole damn movie. I think you need to watch this again with a less-jaundiced eye
"He was running around like a rooster in a barnyard full of ducks."Pat Novak