After his daughter loses her face in an auto accident, an obsessive surgeon abducts young women, and skins their faces in a futile attempt to repair his child’s visage.

Quick! Name as many French films as you can that have been hailed as artistic masterpieces by the cinematic community.

Good! Now from that list, name one that a normal person would rent as a Friday night’s entertainment.
Yeah, there is a bit of a conundrum there.

While the French arguably invented the art of cinema, and are usually hailed by those who claim to be authorities on such matters as foremost among filmmakers, I really don’t know anyone who really likes French films. Let me explain my meaning, I don’t mean to suggest that most folk loath French films, even though plenty probably do, just that they don’t think of them as real movies. Most Americans, at least those with a taste for such things, tend to consider these films as being similar to street performance or an abstract sculpture. Something to be peered at, discussed, evaluated, even appreciated, but not truly enjoyed. For us, watching French films seems to be a wholly detached experience, like viewing an insect trapped in amber.

So what’s to blame for this phenomenon? Most film critics would point a finger at the insipidity of American audiences. While there may be some small amount of truth to this (the very fact that someone keeps watching all those damned “reality” TV shows proves in itself that we as a people could do with some smartening up) it’s mostly just the result of the typical elitist inclination for pissing and moaning. I myself must offer my own j’accuse to the whole French film industry itself. I’m sorry if I’m generalizing here, but every bit of gallic celluloid I’ve seen has been so myopically focused on being arty that it never takes time to stoop to anything so banal as being entertaining. While I’m certainly not saying that ‘Eyes’ is bad film, it unfortunately shares some of this penchant for self-conscious posturing.

Perhaps the best example of the aforementioned phenomenon is the dearth of French horror films. While other nations, Japan, Italy, Germany, the U.K., and of course the good old US of A have turned out literally oodles of scary flicks over the years, the very people who created cinema (not to mention the  Grand Guignol ) have no more than a handful to their name! Again, forgive me if there’s a huge glut of brie-stained shockers warehoused somewhere in the Parisian catacombs, but I am an ugly American and can only judge the French film industry by the sparse number of films which actually reach our shores. Of the top of my head, I can only think of four French horror film that I know exist. This film, the recently released ‘High Tension’, ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’, and ‘The Vanishing’, and the latter two really more of an action film and thriller respectively.  And keep in mind, I’m the type of guy who torments the clerks at Blockbuster® by asking them if they have any copies of ‘Jigoku’, or ‘Gatto nel Cervello’ on stock.

And so I think I’ve made my point, good day.

Oh Hell, I was supposed to be reviewing a movie, wasn’t I?

Well, let’s start things off on the right foot. ‘Eyes’ is an exquisitely made film. The acting is superb, at all levels. Pierre Brasseur is well cast as an unlikable, cold and sociopathic but understandably obsessed surgeon. It’s a rare occurrence when you can sympathize with a character despite not liking him very much. Edith Scob is simply brilliant. She manages to give a touching performance as the faceless Christiane despite spending the majority of the film cloaked behind an emotionless mask.

The movie itself is gorgeous. Small touches like the blank, staring mask worn by the disfigured young lady, and rows of cold, stylized crosses in the cemetery add creepy little touches to the proceedings. Simply put, the art direction, the sets, the cinematography are all top notch, as you might well expect from an ‘art’ film.

This, of course, is the main problem with ‘Eyes’. Not to beat a dead horse, but the ‘art film’ is by definition a redundant little critter. If a film is good, if it engages the audience, it naturally follows that it is art. But ‘Eyes’ seems so much more concerned with being artistic than being scary, and finally manages to bury its chills under a mountain of stupefyingly self-important imagery. The film comes close to working, and for about 20 minutes, it does. This small segment begins when Christiane confronts one of her father’s abductees. The scene is quite disturbing and builds a genuine sense of tension. It ends with the unmasking of Christiane (although thankfully, the view of her face remains a bit fuzzy, giving the scene an added hint of surrealism, as well as preserving the film’s subtlety. )

The following scene, lacks all subtlety, and is all the more unnerving for it. It portrays the good doctor removing the face of the aforementioned unfortunate young lady. It is shot straightforward, without artifice or pretension. It goes on WAY too long, and makes you feel queasy at its conclusion. There is no flashy direction, it’s simply a slow, loving scene of someone cutting and peeling a woman’s face off. Ish! The only comparable scene I could think of is the scalping scene in ‘Maniac’, only difference is, this movie is actually good.

Good, but not great. Because of its very nature, ‘Eyes’ spend so much time trying to impress its importance and meaning on the viewer, that it manages to keep them at arm’s length.