The Face of Another (1966)

Tatsuya Nakadai: Mr. Okuyama

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mr. Okuyama : There are monsters who act like people and people who act like monsters. Even monsters have their pleasures.

• Mr. Okuyama : The face is just a few dozen square inches above the neck, covered with a layer of dough. Isn't that right? I wanted to think so. I told myself a million times it was only a layer of skin, a surface. But now I'm not so sure. The face is the door to the soul. When the face is closed off, so too is the soul. Nobody is allowed inside. The soul is left to rot, reduced to ruins. It becomes the soul of a monster, rotten to the core. I feel as if I've been buried alive.

• Mr. Okuyama : Why are people so biased about skin color and cheekbones and such?

• Mr. Okuyama : I'm hot. It's probably the bandages.

  Mrs. Okuyama : Why not take them off? They'll ruin your skin.

  Mr. Okuyama : You can't kill something that's already dead.

• Mr. Okuyama : Civilization demands light, even at night.

  Mrs. Okuyama : That may be.

  Mr. Okuyama : But a man without a face is free only when darkness rules the world.

  [laughs] 

  Mr. Okuyama : Isn't that why deep-sea fish are so grotesque?

• Psychiatrist : You'll feel better soon. Once you're used to the mask, you'll be a new man -- one with no records, no past. A mind invisible to the world.

  Mr. Okuyama : I'm me!

• Psychiatrist : What if the mask lives on by taking over your body?

  Mr. Okuyama : So I'm a guinea pig after all.

  Psychiatrist : I could mass-produce them. A face, easily removed. A world without family, friends or enemies. There'd be no criminals, hence crime itself would disappear. Unbound freedom, hence no yearning for it. No such thing as home, hence no dreams of escaping from it. Loneliness and friendship would bleed into one another. Trust among people, now so richly prized, would become obsolete. Suspicion and betrayal would no longer be possible.

• Mr. Okuyama : I wonder if losing one's face deranges one's senses.

• Mr. Okuyama : Until a few days ago, I half-seriously intended to carve up your face until it looked as bad as mine. It would serve you right: spouting lies about how a disfigured face is no big deal.

• Psychiatrist : I see I'm beginning to bother you. Is it because I know your true self?

  Mr. Okuyama : I just want to try being alone.

  Psychiatrist : The mask wants to take on a life of its own.

  Mr. Okuyama : I want to be alone, without being judged.

• Mr. Okuyama : Did I seduce you - or did you let yourself be seduced?

• Mrs. Okuyama : Do you really live here? It doesn't smell like a woman lives here. Or a man either, for that matter.

  Mr. Okuyama : [masked]  Are you in the habit of sniffing your way around?