Interesting, but...

Really? I thought the mask fitting scene was brilliant. I understand your problem with the doctor/psychiatrist/mask-maker, though it didn't really bother me while I was watching the film. I mean, this movie isn't exactly firmly based in reality. A little suspension of disbelief is necessary.

For what it's worth, here the film plot diverges from the novel. In the book, the disfigured man is a scientist - so he makes the mask himself after consulting with various "experts" such as an old friend who is an anthropologist. He tries on various "expressions" (smiling, laughing, etc.) but settles upon a beard to cover the mask line at the jaw rather quickly.

It's been years since the original post. I just read it and I'm happy someone at least had the guts to criticize this good but greatly over-rated film. I just watched it last not on Direct TVs IFC (Independent film channel). I expected much more and was disappointed by the abrupt and senseless ending.

Funny you should mention 'Woman in the Dunes'. We were planning to watch that this weekend.

I'm responding to a post from two years ago almost to the day ! Talk about late for the party !

you have to look at the scientist and the mask wearer as one in the same person. they are mirrors of each other, extensions of the same person. the director as said as much in later years.

i think this is his masterwork, and if you watch this film and all you can remember/take away from it is the facial hair scene, well then... oh well.

'eyes without a face' is ok too (it can't touch 'a face of another' conceptually, or artistically though), but if you lent that suspicious eye for fake beards to 'eyes without a face' you may come away disappointed on later viewings as well.

Well, while being a great film, Eyes Without A Face has no face transplant in it, so I can't agree with you, as I think the two movies have practically nothing in common. Eyes Without A Face only shows a crazy guy who attempts to make a transplant and fails. This film, on the other hand, has a facial transplant in it, so it's obvious that it's more about the way a person copes with having a new face/identity rather than how far a person will go to make amends for a damaged he cause to a loved one (as in the case of EWAF).
About the facial hair: you may or may not know that beards are considered on a psychological level to be "masks" that people may choose to wear to hide something about themselves (at least it used to be, before hipsters came along). Not all psychologists agree on that point of view, but many do. Teshigahara, while not being a psychologist (or was he?) might be one of those who agree that the main character, while trying to hide the fact that he's wearing a mask, spends a lot of thought an time about the right beard, which will function as the "mask to hide the mask".
Think about it: why should the guy even have a beard in the first place if the beard itself didn't mean something to him? The beard is there for a reason, and a pretty important one.

I have some issues with this film, mostly concerning the identity loss idea not brought to its full potential, the boring main character and his confusing motivation, awkward ending, and the subplot, which, albeit being more interesting than the main plot, simply felt like it was just shoehorned in without an attempt to follow the same flow as the rest of the movie.

The biggest positive side is the striking black and white cinematography, it looks really beautiful in certain scenes and I like the repetitions of certain motifs, like mirrors, surface reflections, face closeups and repeated situations. The movie has a German feel to it, what with the Hitler speeches, Germanic music, beer etc. (I guess the idea was to connect it with the war, maybe because the identity crisis is connected to war calamities?), which felt sort of out of place, as many scenes did.

But overall, it's creepy enough, has some nice visuals, and despite its flaws it's not a bad movie by any means. I think I'd give it a 7,5/10. Check out the video essay by James Quandt, it makes the message/visual elements/style/whatever very clear.

But the mask wasn't a perfectly constructed one. It was just a general fitting one.