The Face of Another

A Japanese film. Okuyama lost his face in an accident. An industrial explosion; his face is entirely burned and he goes about in bandages. He asks a psychiatrist for help. The doctor's proposal is unusual: a cast will be taken from someone else's face and a mask made, one that resembles real skin and will not be noticed when worn. The mask is made. Okuyama puts it on and goes out. From there the film becomes an experiment in identity. With the new face the man behaves as someone else; he approaches his own wife as a stranger and tests whether she will know him. What the narrative is interested in is not the face but permission: the mask gives him not a new identity but a way to put down responsibility, and he believes he will answer to nobody for what he does. There is a second line. The story of a young woman with a scar across half her face is told in separate sections, and the two lines answer each other. The design is the strongest thing in it. The doctor's consulting room is made of glass panels, hanging models of organs and lines drawn into empty space; the place is not realistic but conceptual. The source is Kōbō Abe's novel; he wrote the screenplay as well. Tatsuya Nakadai plays Okuyama, Mikijiro Hira the doctor and Machiko Kyō his wife. The music is by Tōru Takemitsu and a waltz carries the whole film. Hiroshi Teshigahara directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Japanese art cinema of the 1960s and narratives built on identity. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a straight story; the film is abstract, long and deliberately leaves its ending unresolved.