superville I get it: The premise of a man whose face is disfigured in an accident and then covered by a life-like mask serves as a plot device to explore the relationship between external appearance and character. Contrived and pretentious is how this theme is handled in the film, starting with the opening narration that is so clever it makes no sense at all. Things do not get better as the film plods on. The character of the psychiatrist (!!!) who developed the mask is particularly annoying: his incessant pseudo philosophical drivel was driving me crazy. No wonder his human guinea pig suffers a breakdown and eventually does him in (we are expected to believe that - just as the psychiatrist had predicted - the new handsome face changed the man's personality and made him do nasty things).But what personality change are we talking about when the main character is obnoxious to begin with? While his face is still all bandaged up, all he does is self loathing and accusing his wife of rejection. To prove himself right he then uses the fancy mask to seduce his wife only to call her out how easily she gave in to another man. Predictably she says she knew it was him all along. That is actually one of the few plausible ideas in an otherwise vacuous script: after all his body, voice and mannerisms have not changed. But why did not she say so upfront? Ah, right, then there would be no dramatic conflict!I know, it is all supposed to be very profound, symbolic and what have you, but the film tries so hard to be high-brow that it ended up having the opposite effect on me. The much celebrated aesthetics felt calculated and ostentatious, a mere display of visual gimmickery. Then perhaps evoking the feelings of anger and alienation in the viewer was the whole point.

WILLIAM FLANIGAN 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.

Cosmoeticadotcom Every so often one pops in a DVD into a player and gets a hell of a nice surprise via the images that start pouring out from the boob tube. Such was the case when I decided to watch a film of Hiroshi Teshigahara's, from a trilogy pack, released by The Criterion Collection, a few years ago. I had seen the collection at a good price, so bought it, knowing that some time in the future, when looking for a film to watch, I would come across the three disk set and be taken. Well, I was right. The film of his I chose as my initial foray was his third film, 1966's 124 minute long The Face Of Another (Tanin No Kao or ,). It's a terrific film about reality, the self, ego, identity, duplication, and a few other classic themes in psychology, and one that just misses greatness because of a few minor flaws: a bit too show-offy and obvious in terms of its psychology and symbolism, a failed side story, and a few moments where the narrative fell into predictability. But, these flaws are only enough to keep it from flat-out greatness. Otherwise, the film is intelligent, well-written, well-acted, and brilliantly directed.The film was based on a novel of the same title by Kobo Abe. Abe and Teshigahara were partners on four films in the 1960s that were, to Japanese cinema, what the French New Wave was to European cinema. The film is a mélange of cinematic daring and brilliance, yet oddly contained in the older full frame aspect ratio and shot in black and white. This only emphasizes the innovation within the classic framework.

gentendo In the search for self-discovery, one who suffers from an inferiority complex cannot mask who they really are from the public. This film brought certain questions to my mind: Which is worse? Suffering the physical and external conditions of a burned face, or, suffering the emotional and internal conditions of low self-worth? In the beginning, Mr. Okuyama is a self-loathing and debased man who in consequence of his own self-rejection polarizes the relationships he has with others. The laboratory incident that subsequently disfigures his face causes Okuyama to finally have reason to unleash the inner-poison he has festered inside for a long time. The inner-poison he carries is the self-absorbed and accumulated hatred he has for himself. He tries to blame his wife for not showing the affection he wants from her by stating that it is because of his external ugliness that she rejects him, when really this is a mere mask for his internal ugliness he has not yet accepted. Okuyama's arc will deal with his transformation from reproached and depraved thinker to confident and strong human participant.After receiving his new face from a complete stranger, he "allows the mask to take over" and become who he always wanted to become—a confident human participant. But it seems only a transient form of hiding from who he really is. Soon, his true and inner-self begins leaking through the mask; as seen when the retarded hotel daughter realizes who he is, and, when his attempts to seduce his wife fail. The attempts fail because she claims she already knew it was him despite his cover-up. When he realizes that the mask is wearing off, he tries to resort to alcohol to cover up his insecurities. Despite his efforts to cover-up who he really is, the truth of his character haunts him like a shadow that doesn't depart.The most pervasive ideology that I observed within the Japanese culture was the idea of isolation. During the beginning credit sequence, seas of people are shown mindlessly crowded together and slowly walking along the city streets of Japan. With so many blank faces to observe and not a clear direction on who to focus on, the viewer becomes anxious and feels rather isolated—not connected to any of the people shown. It brought to mind how seemingly insignificant all of us sometimes feel when walking in a crowd of people, asking ourselves: "Who am I to be anything important when others are more capable, beautiful, and intelligent as I?" As the film demonstrates, it is a personal subject matter on the nature of identity. The Japanese seem to feel that the search for one's identity is one that is lonely, fearful, and full of angst and despair. All of these ideas are exposed through Mr. Okuyama—a man who has not accepted who he is and attempts to mask his true identity from situation to situation.Further evidence of this isolation is seen in a very literal rendering of the idea of losing identity. Seas of people are seen once again walking along the city street towards Okuyama and his psychiatrist, this time, however, with no faces at all. The psychiatrist says, "The pathway to freedom is a lonely journey." To me this spoke of how when one becomes enlightened to the truth of the world (that is, the way it really is), the lonelier it becomes because of the fact that most people don't question their identity. They just seem to be mindlessly drifting from situation to situation, never once taking thought or examining the nature of their existence. The loneliness also increases because the enlightened doesn't have anyone to share his/her experience with that will understand let alone accept their position. It reminded me of Plato's cave. Okuyama is attempting to break free of the chains that bind him inside the dark and damp lit cave (i.e. the world and his place in it) and see the truth and beauty of the outside world. The journey to do so is a difficult one—full of doubt, discouragement, feelings of low self-worth, and confusion.The idea of internal and external beauty is also an important idea inside this culture. The seemingly insignificant side-story of the beautiful woman with the scarred face helped demonstrate this idea. When she is seen walking along the city street and flirtatious chants are thrown her way, she turns her face in their direction and immediately the chants cease. They become aware of her external ugliness—their once playful manners have now turned into cold and harsh rejections. The Japanese culture (like most) seems to be suggesting that the world has not yet learned to accept inner beauty, but is still judging the books by their covers. The same judgment is intertwined into Okuyama's character. He is constantly thinking that others are judging him and that they will reject the "monster" that he supposedly is. When he receives a new face entirely, he still believes that others, namely his wife, are rejecting him. It goes to prove one thing: No matter how attractive the masks we wear appear outwardly, if the soul is scarred, we will still be ugly on the outside.