Death as Transformation

Death as Transformation in ‘Eyes Without a Face’: 

We know that Death rides a pale horse. The Grim Reaper as he is known to many is a universal symbol for the end of life. He appears to guide us, willingly or not, into the afterlife. 

One of the more common artistic representations of Death can be found in the infamous 13th Major Arcana card of a traditional tarot deck. The unveiling of this card is a trope found frequently in many horror films. The widening of the tarot reader’s eyes as they turn the card. The sharp intake of breath from the one receiving the prophecy as they take in the skeletal visage on the card. However the soothsayer is quick to reassure and educate them on the true nature of the card’s meaning. Some decks, in fact, have chosen to omit the name from the card entirely, instead referring to it as “The Card with No Name.” It symbolizes the true nature of the card which is that it frequently stands for much more than a literal death. ‘Death’ in this context represents a transformation. The transition from one stage of life to another. And that change, similarly to the artistic styles of a tarot card, can take on infinite likenesses. 

It may have been this interpretation of death that Georges Franju considered when creating ‘Eyes Without a Face’ (1960). In this film, cited as one of the earliest precursors to the New French Extremity movement, Dr. Génessier, played with chilling academic stoicism by Pierre Brasseur, kidnaps a series of young women. He uses them as nonconsenting participants in an experimental facial transplant surgery to help his young daughter. Christiane, played by Edith Scob, suffered disfiguring facial injuries following a car accident (caused by her father’s reckless driving). She is believed dead by society at large and lives in isolation in her father’s mansion while he seeks to heal her injuries through his sadistic medical practices. 

Christiane’s pain and emotional suffering are evident. In her first appearance on-screen she scolds her impervious father for not allowing her to die following the accident. And later she beseeches her father’s medical assistant, Louise, to help her die by what we would now term medically assisted suicide. Christiane is clothed all in white and wears a mask to cover her scars that obscures all signs of human emotion save her large, doe-like, eyes. Her movements are like that of a ghostly dancer, seeming to literally float about her home. Her presence in this stately residence evokes images of a haunted mansion, although her heart still beats.  

The fixation on death in the face of chronic suffering in this film will be very familiar to those who have experienced suicidal ideation and clinical depression. Christiane demonstrates how one might allow their pain to push them to the point where death feels preferable to continued existence. The nature of her tragic accident, which has caused a facial deformity that even the strongest-willed amongst us might find it difficult to tolerate, makes her experience all the more relatable to the viewing audience. 

The responses of those around Christiane are also powerfully relatable to the experience of those struggling with profound depression. Her father, an academic and scientist to his very core, becomes fixated on “fixing” Christiane as opposed to helping her to “heal”. The first relies on the cold and dispassionate realm of evidence-based science. The second is a humanistic art-form that requires genuine connection and unconditional positive regard. Similarly, Louise is blinded by her own personal experiences with healing. As a previous patient of Dr. Génessier, she presumes that what has worked for her will also work for Christiane. She has become a disciple to his traditional form of medicine. She is unwilling and unable to hear the nuance and individual nature of Christiane’s experience and consider that her path to healing may be different from her own. In Louise’s insistence toward a traditional means of healing we see echoes of the toxic self-care society of today which promises health through the wellness strategy du jour, be it medication, mindfulness, yoga or cognitive-behavioral therapy. 

Christiane’s appearance as a ghost in her own home is mirrored by how her alleged support circle ignores her desperate pleas to understand that their efforts to force a particular kind of treatment on her are not working. She says so herself when she tells her father: “My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.” The treatment dictated to her by her medically-oriented father feels more distressing than her natural condition. It is left to the viewer’s interpretation whether Christiane’s desire for death is a result of her accident and facial injuries or whether it may actually be a result of the treatment being forced upon her without her full consent. 

In the end, as with the experiments of most ‘Mad Scientists’, Dr. Génessier’s treatment is doomed to fail and causes more harm than good. Christiane rebels against the treatment plan and frees his most recent captive. She frees the dogs upon whom Dr. Genessier has been painfully experimenting and they immediately pounce upon their captor, devouring him alive. Christiane stabs Louise in the neck and proceeds to wander into the woods surrounding her estate, accompanied by a flock of white doves. Her ultimate fate is uncertain and open to many interpretations. 

Doves serve as another metaphor in this scene. They are a bird that is associated both with peace and with death as evidenced in the symbolic releasing of doves sometimes seen in funereal procedures. Christiane’s journey into the woods with the doves can be seen as a symbolic choosing of death over continued suffering. In a literal interpretation, Georges Franju’s film may be seen as advocating for personal choice in death. Encouraging us to consider an individuals’ agency in choosing when and how to embrace death. However her journey could also be considered through the lens of the ‘Death’ more often seen in tarot. A transformation into a new stage of life. She has destroyed her previous life through the murder of her father and his assistant and has been freed to seek a new way of life, one where she seeks to  embrace her new identity (with or without a mask) and finding peace and healing through more natural means away from modern-day science. 

A more literal film would likely have ended with Christiane’s bodily death by suicide. This option was shown earlier in the film through the death of a previous victim of Dr. Génessier who died by throwing herself from an open window in the estate. Franju deliberately ends the film with Christiane still alive, choosing to portray a symbolic act of “suicide” not as a means of destroying her body and life but rather transforming it. Seeking to heal through an embrace of death is not an act of self-destruction but rather a radical act of self-love.

Media & Notes: 

Film:

Franju, Georges. (1960). Eyes Without a Face.