Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24485 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-21
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 124 minutes

DVD Description
Following Woman of the Dunes [Suna no onna] in 1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara continued his collaboration with avant-garde novelist/playwright Kobo Abe and experimental composer Toru Takemitsu for The Face of Another [Tanin no kao]. Starring Tatsuya Nakadai (Yojimbo, Kagemusha) as a man "buried alive behind eyes without a face", the film addresses the illusive nature of identity and the agony of its absence. A man (Nakadai) facially disfigured in a laboratory fire persuades his doctor to fashion him a lifelike mask modeled on a complete stranger — totally different from his own face. Shortly after the mask is made, he successfully seduces his own wife (Machiko Kyo) but becomes angry at her falling for a handsome stranger. Worrying about his looks, and the way the mask seems to influence his identity, he begins to question everything.

Alongside Franju's Les Yeux sans visage, Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Whale's Frankenstein, Teshigahara and Abe's The Face of Another stands proud as one of cinema's most haunting explorations of identity. The Masters of Cinema Series proudly presents the film for the first time in the West on home video.

Special Features
• Restored transfer and audio • Exclusive full-length audio commentary by Tony Rayns • New English subtitle translation • 16-page booklet with an essay by David Toop • Original trailer • Gallery containing rare production stills and artwork

Synopsis
A man who suffers with facial disfigurement commissions a mask from his doctor, based on a complete stranger's face. He discovers that the mask changes his life. New restored transfer.

Customer Reviews

Faustian and darkly amusing
An excellent recent birthday present and I was surprised to read the other negative reviews here. The whole brilliance of this story lies in the fact that there is never anything sympathetic about the main character. Disfigured to the point of prefering to wear banadages for the rest of his life, we never encounter him before what is only adumbrated as an horrific industrial accident. It is neatly suggested that it is his mistake in fitting a gas mask that contrains him to wear other masks for the rest of his life. At another level, however, it is simply about establishing the backdrop for the story - a kind of dual interpretative level the film continues to offer up throughout without being heavy handed. Indeed, it is entirely likely that he was already an inveterate neurotic and narcissist, but that is part of the ambiguous mix of possible scenarios, emotions, psychonalysis and philosophy this film throws at the audience without fully confirming any particular take. And in any case Nakadai remains utterly compelling throughout. A scene where he does a little dance in front of a hotel mirror is so subtley conceived and impishly daemonic as to be my favourite moment. Moreover, the monotone voice one reviewer mentioned has a clear motivation in his character and is discussed in the film. It would be easy to dismiss some of the montage and lighting techniques as dated, but in my view they would have looked distincly odd at the time anyway. Playing with conventions from still photopgraphy, Pop Art, surrealism and non-naturalistic theatre is all part of the fun here. Throw in a dash of budget Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, some Zen-esque musings and you have an engaging film. A parallel story cuts in every so often as a counterpoint and the whole leaves you with that feeling of "I'm not quite sure what it meant, but it was good" which Teshigahara was propobably aiming for. Finally, a word on the music - well worth a second watch and a second listen.

Ambiguity -intentional and unintentional
I don't know whether you could say that this is a lesser work of cinema to 'Woman of the Dunes' or simply that the storyline and the setting of the latter give it a natural headstart on this film.

For non-Japanese speakers (like myself) I would definitely advise renting this film before buying - the reason for this is that throughout the film the English subtitles are not quite English to the extent that it may be an obstacle to developing a more long term relationship and understanding with the film. All evidence is that in creating the subtitles a Japanese translator was used without a significant subsequent revisional process to render into fully proper English. At many points I felt that the subtitles were not 100% fully or accurately conveying the content of the Japanese dialogue and this poses a significant problem in a film where the plot is not straightforward and deliberately plays with ambiguity, the borders between fantasy and reality, certain characters apparently being partially real, partially representations of the main characters own subconscious thought etc. I was left wondering to what extent the overall ambiguity experienced and the hypothesing this raised actually resided in the film and was the intention of the filmakers and what was merely a product of the subtitles - perhaps for a Japanese viewer things would have been much more straightforwardly ambiguous!

Utterly pretentious
The actor Tatsuya Nakadai has given some brilliant, compelling performances (Kagemusha, Seppuku). Not in this film though. It's difficult to feel anything other than revulsion for the lead character, whose face has been all but obliterated in an industrial accident. His self pity and mistreatment of his wife, (who is having difficulty coming to terms with not just the change to his appearance, but the damage done to his personality) is awful to watch. If this was simply about two people coming to terms with a tragedy of that nature, the film would work. Unfortunately, the director has tried to turn it into something arty/noirish, and failed spectacularly. It is pretentious, painful nonsense, made all the more disappointing by Nakadai's insistence on speaking in a near monotone. Apparently the film is some kind of allegory on the aftermath of Hiroshima. Hiroshima deserves a whole lot better than this.