Eyes without a Face - film review

Art Gallery NSW - Identity series
French - 84 minutes

In this 1959-60s original black and white French film, a talented and highly respected professor/surgeon, Doctor Génessie (Pierre Brasseur) has dedicated his life work to experimenting on animals to pioneer a medical breakthrough in human transplant. He has a motive however, as a night of reckless behaviour killed his wife and seriously disfigured his only daughter Christine's (Edit Scob) face in a car accident. Desperate to restore his daughter former beauty and alleviate his guilt, his secretary Louise (Alida Valli) conspires with Génessie to kidnap suitable young ladies into the surgeon's lair. Louise is also a grateful recipient of Génessie's handiwork.

Despite successful experiments on a multitude of dogs, Louise is his only human success to date. The many attempts at facial grafts from the victims to Christine all end in failure. With each failure Génessie becomes more sadistic and obsessive, neglecting Christine's pleas to stop.

The surgeries take it toll on Christine as seemingly she is destined to live her life behind a mask. She begs Louise to kill her with the tranquiliser they use on the dog experiments though she refuses. Génessie and Louise are lost in a world on the edge of madness.

In an iconic expressly graphic scene where Génessie slowly and methodically removes the face of one of his "donors", minutes  afterward the film stopped and the lighting went up. Someone in the audience had literally fainted. A phenomenon has reports back to the film's release in the 1960s.

Filmed in a classic Hollywood linear sequence unusual for French films of this era, Eyes without a Face, is spine chillingly drama both visually and emotionally. Though it has overtones of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, it pushes the boundaries of pseudo-realism much further. A man on the edge striving to maintain control, this film is also steeped in metaphors of science versus life that is just as relevant today. 

A must see for anyone with a strong constitution and a moral sense of poetic justice.

Sydney Film Festival - The Great Bear

Nordic Children's Animation - English version - 75 minutes

 

Esben Toft Jacobsen's The Great Bear is a tale about sibling rivarly, trust, responsibility, and ultimately our connection with all things - nature, animals and each other.

 

In acts of pure innocence, six-year Sophie constantly outwits her older brother Jonathan in their games of hide and seek. In frustration he decides to visit his Grandfather that lives on the edge of an ancient 'forbidden' forest. Sophie wangles her way into tagging along much to Johnathan's dismay. He decides to scare the wits out of her by telling her what he thinks are exagerated myths about the forest and it seems to work. Sophie's terrified, tightly clutching her best friend that happens to be a stuffed bear.

 

The Grandfather backs up Johnathan's story, forbidding them to enter a tiny door, reminiscent of Alice's rabbit hole, that leads into the dense, strange forest. Though as Sophie and Johnathan's games get out of hand once again, Sophie finds herself locked out of the safety of her grandfather's garden and into the surreal world of the forest. Johnathan panics, scared by his own words of the danger, he knows he must save Sophie.

 

The forest world has a certain magic, however, that Sophie instantly connects to. She befriends the bigger-than-a-highrise brown bear whose love for butterflies and its need for camouflage from a crazy hunter, by cultivating a small growth forest on its back, consume it's days. 

 

Finally catching up to Sophie, Johnathan, with much help from tiny moose and intelligent birds, realises his true mission is the save the Great Bear from instinction. 

 

A really lovely story with some wonderful animation techniques. It seemed for me to capture all the wonderful things of childhood.

 

Sydney Film Festival - Life in Movement

Australian - 80 minutes

This superb documentary, directed, written and produced by Bryan Mason and Sophie Hyde, is a testament to not only friendship but the amazing life of Tanja Liedtke.

Far back as a child in boarding school at the Elmhurst School for Dance in England, Tanja carried around a video camera. With this tool she was able to practice new dance moves. Even then her excess energy, extroverted personality and long lean flexible stature was awe-inspiring.

In 2004 long-time friends Bryan and Sophie began to document her most notable achievements as dancer and choreographer. As the film documentary progressed, so did Tanja's career. After having world-wide success with her life partner Sol Ulbrich on two independent theatre productions, Twelfth Floor and Construct, Tanja was about to embark on her greatest challenge yet. In 2007, at only 29 years old she was to succeed Graeme Murphy as Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company.

Tragically she was killed in a road accident only weeks before she was due to start. The performances and on-tour interviews, along with life-long habit of intimate video recordings provide a unique insight into Tanja truly inspiring life in movement.

This is a documentary of celebration, not of a mourning. A beautiful told story in every way.

Sydney Film Festival - Dingo

Australia - 106 minutes

Director Rolf de Heer's Dingo, beautifully remastered by the team at the National Film and Archive, may of been produced 20 years ago, though this story is timeless. It begins in 1969 in an small West-Australian town when unexpectedly a 747-jet plane lands on the tiny airstrip. As the residents rush to the plane the hatch opens to reveal Billy Cross (Miles Davis), a famous Jazz Musician.

Young John "Dingo" Anderson is mesmerised by the unique sound and this becomes the defining moment of his life-long love of the trumpet. Dingo (Colin Friels) grows up, has a family, and forms a small bush band. His job as a dingo trapper sees him traveling with a beaten up caravan for up to weeks at a time with only his faithful dog and trumpet to ward off the isolation.

Years go by and he relentlessly sends demo tapes to music companies and letters to Billy Cross, all of which go unanswered.  What starts a joke, one of the bush band members and neighbour, sends him a telegram from one of the Music Labels saying they love his music and Dingo is over the moon. That is until he realises he's been had. Devastated and embarrassed there's only one thing left to do... go to Paris and find Billy Cross.

This would have to be the best Australian film I've seen in a long while. Colin Friels and Miles Davis music, what more could you ask for? But there's more, throw in breathtaking outback Australian landscape and some wild, impetus daydreaming and I was humming joyfully all the way home.

Sydney Film Festival - Take Shelter

USA - 123 minutes

Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter is the journey of Curtis (Michael Shannon), a miner in a small town of Ohio and his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain). Their young daughter anxiously awaits a cochlear implant that relies solely on the medical insurance provided for by Curtis' employer.

As Curtis struggles to learn sign-language necessary to converse with his daughter, the pressures of managing a gas drilling site that is behind schedule due to torrential rain, his sleep is interrupted by graphic nightmares. Soon Curtis slips between the lucid nature of his dreams and reality.

His waking hours embody the sensations of his nightmares that leave him literally gasping and disturbed. His wife and community question his sanity and so does Curtis. Unable to shake the overwhelming sense of doom, Curtis resorts to sleeping pills, psychiatry, and a library of mental illness books. Nothing seems to help.

Convinced his dreams are premonitions, Curtis becomes obsessed that a tornado is approaching at any moment. Curtis borrows against his mortgage to build a storm shelter for his family, urging everyone else to do the same. Somewhere in the back of his mind though are reminders of his mothers paranoid illness that has her institutionilised around the same age as him.

Dramatically poetic, brilliantly filmed and edited, this film is filled with metaphor that contradict the literal actions of Curtis. A engaging film that questions jobs versus environment.

Sydney Film Festival - Cave of Forgotten Dreams

USA - 90 mins

Filmed entirely in 3-D, Werner Herzog, escorted us on a journey to this extraordinary documentation of some of the earliest-known representations by humankind: the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave art. Discovered in 1994 by archeologist Chauvet to which the caves are now known, he found hidden high on the side of a rock cliff face a stream of air that alluded to a cave within.

Digging through a small opening revealed an amazing sight that hadn't been viewed by human eyes in an astounding 32,000-40,000 years. In pristine condition and amazing detail the cave drawings, that were grouped around the large openings and narrow corridors, displayed a variety of ancient animals in sophisticated authenticity.

The scattering of animal bones, now crystalised rock formations, alludes to the bond between man and nature, and the ritualisation of ceremony - a contract between human and beast. In Hertzog's words illuminated on the rock where 'forgotten dreams whisper the spirituality of our ancestors'.

Access to the paintings has been strictly limited to a handful of researchers though now, through Herzog, has been recorded for posterity.

Sydney Film Festival - The Future

USA - 91 mins.

Miranda July's kooky narrative (also directed and stars) plays around with time and space as a film concept.

LA couple Jason (Hamish Linklater), an IT help-line assistant and Sophie (July), a children's dance teacher, spend most of their time together watching YouTube and Googling useless information. They know they should be doing more with their time but aren't sure what that is. Finally they decide upon adopting a cat from the animal shelter. However, when they excitedly arrive at the shelter, the cat they've chosen, Paw Paw, has a wounded paw. It will take around 30 days for Paw Paw's paw to heal. Jason declares to Paw Paw that they will care for it and love it until the day it dies.

While waiting for Sophie, Jason talks to a young girl about a drawing her father did of her with her pet dog that's pinned to the noticeboard in the Vet's waiting room. The girl's father returns and starts unpinning the drawing. Jason, aware the girl is upset no-one wanted this drawing, purchases it from them. From that moment on Jason decides that he isn't going to let any possible opportunity pass him by again.

Sophie and Jason now have a 30 day reprieve before the responsiblity of Paw Paw will change their life. 30 days in which to be free. Jason quits his IT job and at a whim joins a 'group' for petitioning of a greener LA. Sophie is then inspired to quit her dance teacher job, though she hasn't thought about what she'll do instead.

While Jason is out everyday trying to flog trees to the uninterested suburbia, Julia attempts her own YouTube video but to no avail. She feels like Jason is 'out there' experiencing the world while she's still at a loss.

Spontaneously she decides to call the number on the back of the drawing Jason brought home previously, sparking a new romance with the Illustrator  father and leaves Jason.

Meanwhile both Sophie and Jason completely loose track of time as Paw Paw anxiously waits for them. Neither is satisfied with their new choices of lifestyle. Fear undermines both their abilities to reason. When Sophie finally remembers Paw Paw and her chance back to her 'old' life she is too late...


A sometimes funny, always quirky, and insightful look at how we view our lives, the fleetingness of time, and how shallow our declarations for love can often be.

Sydney Film Festival - Sleeping Beauty

Australian film - 101 mins.

The bizarre and secret world of Lucy (Emily Browning) where the blandness of routine life is punctuated by an extreme alter ego of drugs, fetish, and fantasy.

Young Lucy's days consist of university, office assistant and waiting tables. She lives in what was the family home that alludes to now being owned by her sister, to which Lucy pays rent.

Her best friend is the seriously ill brother of her ex-boyfriend, and the relationship with her mother is almost non-existent.

The numbness of Lucy's existence, in itself a metaphor of Sleeping Beauty, is filled with mindless activity that extends far into the night, often with random strangers and the odd line of coke.

Adding a further twist to her story, Lucy answers and advert for a fetish-style escort agency where she consents to be drugged into a deep sleep. There she lies naked in an elaborate bedroom designed for rich aging men to escape into their own varied fantasies. While asleep, however, we sense Lucy's subconscious becomes more aware of her life...

Director Julia Leigh's vision for this voyeuristic journey was influenced by her admitted fear of being watched while you're in your most vulnerable state - while you are sleeping!

Leigh is the author of the award-winning novel The Hunter and Disquiet, and this is her debut film. For me it has a tone of Sophia Copola's Somewhere about it.