"Franju's Eyes Without a Face is a film in the tradition of French poetic realism. It is a shimmering, lyrical fantasy and, at the same time, a graphic, cold documentary. Its story is an admittedly clichéd one-the guilty, distraught doctor who tries to restore the beauty of his beloved daughter through diabolical experiments. But as with most good horror directors, Franju manages to transcend the banality of his material. His background in documentaries is evidenced by his gruesome treatment of the surgical face-lifts, very reminiscent of the slaughterhouse scenes in his Le Sang des Bêtes. Franju's political attitude is also carried over from his documentaries. Science and medicine are held up to scrutiny and found guilty of brutality in the supposed service of humanity...Concurrent with this grim, hard-edged reality is the lyrical side of the film, emanating from the character of the daughter. She is a prisoner of her disfigurement. Hiding behind a Kabuki-like mask, her deep, wide eyes staring outward, challenging, pleading, she slips slowly into madness, as the murder and torture mount around her. And so in her madness she becomes the avenging angel. The final shots of the movie are among the most haunting in cinema history. She wanders off into the night as the doves she has released from her father's cages fly about her and the dogs bay at her heels. She has found moral purity by deserting the grim reality of the slaughterhouse for the shadowy illusions of the night." -James Ursini