Tanin no kao (1966)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Writers:

Kôbô Abe (screenplay)
Kôbô Abe (novel)

Release Date:

9 June 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A businessman facially scarred in a laboratory fire receives psychotherapy from a psychiatrist, and obtains an amazingly lifelike mask from the doctor...

Plot Keywords:

Mask | Incest | Doctor | Psychiatrist | Nudity

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Mr. Okuyama
Mikijiro Hira	...	Psychiatrist (as Mikijirô Hira)
Kyôko Kishida	...	Nurse
Miki Irie	...	Girl with Scar
Eiji Okada	...	The Boss
Minoru Chiaki	...	Apartment Superintendent
Hideo Kanze	...	Male Patient
Kunie Tanaka	...	Patient at Mental Hospital
Etsuko Ichihara	...	Yo-Yo Girl
Eiko Muramatsu	...	Secretary
Yoshie Minami	...	Old Lady
Hisashi Igawa	...	Man with Mole
Kakuya Saeki	...	Elder Brother of Girl with Scar
Sen Yano	...	Mentally Ill Man A
Bibari Maeda	...	Singer in Bar

Also Known As:

I Have a Stranger's Face
Stranger's Face
The Face of Another

Runtime:

USA:124 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Train Station, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Teshigahara Productions

Quotes:

Psychiatrist: You're not the only lonely man. Being free always involves being lonely. Just there is a mask you can peel off and another you can not.

Movie Connections:

References La jetée (1962)

Soundtrack:

Waltz

Dark and morbid but wholly enthralling

After an industrial accident that leaves his face disfigured for life, Mr. Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai)begins to question the meaning of life and his own identity, should he keep working, will his disgusted wife ever sleep with him again. His psychotherapist offers him the chance to avail of an illegal medical practice that he has invented, it's a mask moulded from the face of another, that Okuyama can wear to live life a little more normally. The mask gives him a new lease of life, but his therapist warns him that the mask could take over and influence him to do evil things. As the mask takes control Okuyama can't resist but to give in to his baser instincts, his main plan being, to seduce own wife, that he believes may be cheating on him anyway. With thematic echoes of Franju's Les Yeux sans visage and even Delmer Daves Dark Passage, Teshigahara delivers his expressionistic adaptation of Kôbô Abe's novel with style, the results being a dark and epic tale that will haunt its viewers. Its full of inventive visuals and clever tricks with sound, which along with Tôru Takemitsu's superb score contribute wonderfully to the theme of how fragile identity really is and how the masks we all wear hide our true beings and souls. There's also a secondary story of an unnamed facially deformed girl, who is also struggling to cope with her disfigurements and her tragedy is equally moving.