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.
Review of The Face of Another
