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The Face of Another
他人の顔
1966 122 min Japan
★7.8
Drama, Science Fiction
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
🎭 Based on
«The Face of Another»
byKōbō Abe
Trailers
Description
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.
Starring
Tatsuya Nakadai
Actor
Mikijirô Hira
Actor
Kyôko Kishida
Actor
Awards
2 wins total
Key opinion
The Face of Another is widely regarded as a visually stunning and intellectually dense masterpiece of Japanese avant-garde cinema. While the film is praised for its philosophical exploration of identity and post-war trauma, some viewers find its deliberate, theatrical pace and ambiguous narrative structure challenging.
| Direction | Teshigahara’s direction employs precise, avant-garde framing and dramatic lighting that elevate the film into a work of high art. | |
| Score | Toru Takemitsu’s evocative, dissonant score perfectly captures the film's atmosphere of alienation and post-war dread. | |
| Production | The production design, characterized by surreal, futuristic settings and hyper-realistic prosthetics, effectively conveys a sense of psychological unease. | |
| Adaptation | The screenplay successfully translates Kōbō Abe’s complex literary themes of identity and societal masks into a potent visual language, even while deviating from the source material's plot. | |
| Theme | The film explores profound existential questions regarding the nature of the self, human isolation, and the impact of societal expectations. | |
| Pacing | The contemplative, theatrical pacing and ambiguous, often non-linear narrative reward patient viewers but leave others feeling exhausted or detached. |