The Face of Another (1966) on Netflix
After an industrial explosion leaves Okuyama's face disfigured, he hides behind bandages and consults a psychiatrist, who proposes an experimental lifelike mask. The mask may change who he is.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.8/1012,341 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Okuyama, an engineer, is left with a badly burned face after an explosion at work and covers it with bandages. He feels isolated and rejected by his wife, so he consults a psychiatrist, who reluctantly proposes an experimental prosthetic mask. The two pay a man ten thousand yen to serve as the mask's model. Once it is fitted, the psychiatrist asks Okuyama to report his sensations and thoughts, and warns him that wearing the new face could reshape his behavior and personality until he is no longer the same man. Okuyama tells no one about it, says he is away on business, and rents an apartment nearby, testing his new appearance on people he knows. A separate, interwoven tale follows a young woman whose right cheek and neck are scarred and who lives with her brother.
Cast
- Kakuya Saekias Elder Brother of Girl with Scar
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Face of Another (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The psychiatrist Hira's office in the film, a strange blank space with glass partitions, was designed by architect Arata Isozaki, a friend of director Hiroshi Teshigahara, and its glass walls are painted with Langer's lines and Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
- The large and small severed ears that recur in the scenery of several scenes were designed and sculpted by the Japanese sculptor Tomio Miki.
- The film repeats shots verbatim and puts its main character in nearly identical shots twice, most obviously when Okuyama rents two separate apartments, once masked and once with his new face, to highlight his double existence.
