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Psychiatrist: You're not the only lonely man. Being free always involves being lonely. Just there is a mask you can peel off and another you can not.
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[first lines]
Psychiatrist: Recognize these? You know what they are? You don't, do you?
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Psychiatrist: Sadly, this is not only a finger. It's an inferiority complex in the shape of a finger. It's not that I specialize in treating fingers. I'm a psychiatrist, in fact. Inferiority complexes dig holes in the psyche, and I fill them in.
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Mr. Okuyama: I wonder if losing one's face deranges one's senses.
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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.
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Mr. Okuyama: Why are people so biased about skin color and cheekbones and such?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Mr. Okuyama: There are monsters who act like people and people who act like monsters. Even monsters have their pleasures.
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Psychiatrist: There are limits in life. Men don't have wings. No matter how high they rise, they always fall back to earth.
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Mrs. Okuyama: Isn't humility better than vanity?
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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!
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Psychiatrist: Relax. Laugh. Whistle. Yield to the mask. Accept it.
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Psychiatrist: Try to understand. Perhaps I'm unduly worried. I sincerely hope so. But if my fears prove true, masks like this could destroy all human morality. Think about it: name, position, occupation -- such labels would no longer matter. We would all be perfect strangers to one another. Constant solitude would become our normal condition. We'd no longer be ashamed of this modern illness of isolation.
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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.
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Psychiatrist: The retarded girl's sense of smell may be as keen as a dog's.
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Singer in Bar: [singing] I see your face before me, Yet I no longer recognize you, Where are you? Where are you? The you I knew yesterday...
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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.
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Mr. Okuyama: Did I seduce you - or did you let yourself be seduced?
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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?
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Mrs. Okuyama: I have so many selves, I can't even contain them all.
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Mrs. Okuyama: I thought we both knew we were taking part in a masquerade.
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Mrs. Okuyama: In love - people try to unmask one another. But I thought we must strive to keep the masks on.
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Girl with Scar: The ocean seems to be saying something.
The Face of Another Quotes
Extended Reading
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Language: Japanese,German Release date: June 9, 1967