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The Face of Another
Movie

The Face of Another

1966 • Unknown

Woke Score
2
out of 10

Plot

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

Overall Series Review

The Face of Another is a 1966 Japanese New Wave psychological thriller that explores the themes of identity, alienation, and the relationship between a person's inner self and their external appearance. The film centers on a businessman whose face is severely disfigured, leading him to accept an experimental, hyper-realistic mask. The narrative questions whether one's face is the 'door to the soul' or simply a social construct, as the mask allows the protagonist to shed his old personality and embrace a newly amoral persona. The movie is a profound, cerebral examination of existential dread and the superficiality of modern society, not a vehicle for contemporary political or social commentary. Its philosophical nature focuses on universal human struggles, such as social isolation and the loss of self, rather than identity-based hierarchy or grievance politics. A parallel subplot involving a nurse scarred by the Nagasaki bombing links personal disfigurement to post-war societal trauma, adding depth to the commentary on external judgment and internal despair.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics2/10

The core conflict is based on personal identity and the judgment of physical appearance/disfigurement, not an intersectional hierarchy of immutable characteristics like race or privilege in the modern political sense. The story is a critique of a society that judges a man solely on his face. The film’s focus is on the content of the soul versus the social fiction of identity. It is a Japanese film set in Japan, and the contemporary concept of 'whiteness' vilification is entirely absent.

Oikophobia2/10

The film does not frame Japanese culture or ancestors as fundamentally corrupt or racist. Its critique focuses on the alienation and superficiality of modern, industrial society and the lasting trauma of World War II, which caused literal disfigurement (like the nurse's scar from the atomic bombing). This is a commentary on the consequences of industrialization and war, not civilizational self-hatred. Institutions like the family are shown crumbling due to personal tragedy and trauma, not ideological deconstruction.

Feminism2/10

Gender dynamics center on a traditional male protagonist and his wife, whose role is largely defined by her relationship to him and her private suffering. The wife is not a 'Girl Boss' figure, nor is there any explicitly anti-natalist or anti-family messaging. The women in the film, including the scarred nurse in the subplot, are portrayed as victims of trauma and loneliness. The masculinity of the protagonist is not celebrated but rather disintegrates under his own moral and psychological failings.

LGBTQ+1/10

The film focuses entirely on the traditional male-female pairing in the form of a strained marriage. There is no presence of alternative sexualities, gender ideology, or deconstruction of the nuclear family as a political statement. Sexuality is a private matter tied to the main character's attempt to use his new face for an affair, which is a key part of his moral degradation.

Anti-Theism2/10

The narrative is a deeply metaphysical and existential enquiry into the nature of the 'soul' and 'self' rather than an attack on organized religion. The moral decay of the protagonist stems from the philosophical question of whether the mask frees him from all moral constraint, suggesting a form of moral relativism, but this is a personal exploration, not an attack on faith. There is no specific hostility toward Christianity or traditional religion.