Okuyama, an engineer, is left scarred and hidden behind bandages after an industrial blast, his face a constant reminder of the accident. Isolated and increasingly alienated from his wife, he seeks help from a psychiatrist, a man who recognizes the depth of Okuyama’s frustration and the way the disfigurement has hollowed out his sense of self. The psychiatrist, Arnaldo Ninchi, proposes an audacious experiment: he helps design and fit a prosthetic mask that could restore a sense of normalcy, even if it risks rewriting Okuyama’s identity. A cash payment of 10,000 yen is offered to a willing model, and the mask is fashioned to slip over Okuyama’s scarred features, transforming the man who looks back in the mirror.
With the mask complete, the psychiatrist demands that Okuyama chronicle his sensations and thoughts as the device begins to blur the line between reality and performance. He warns that the mask may alter not just appearance but behavior, perhaps shaping him into someone unrecognizable even to himself. Okuyama chooses secrecy, concealing the mask from everyone and moving into a nearby apartment while telling his wife that he is traveling on business. The act of disguise becomes a daily experiment in which he tests the mask’s reach: he passes unseen as a secretary at his own company, and later as the apartment building’s superintendent’s daughter, who recognizes him while others do not.
As the two men meet in a room of fragile ethics, the psychiatrist realizes that Okuyama has already wandered into a new version of himself. He imagines a world where the mask goes into mass production, erasing traditional notions of morality and leaving society to wear the same altered face. This chilling forecast hints at a future where identity is manufactured and conscience is optional.
Empowered by his new visage, Okuyama sets his sights on his wife, initiating a dangerous seduction that plays out with a disturbing blend of familiarity and duplicitous charm. When his wife appears to acquiesce too easily, a surge of anger overtakes him, and he exposes the ruse. She replies that she has known his true identity from the moment he approached her, refusing to forgive the deception or return to a life built on lies. The balance between intimacy and deceit collapses, driving Okuyama toward even darker impulses.
The psyche’s fragility deepens as Okuyama attempts to assault a woman on the street, an act that lands him behind bars. Yet his release comes not from law but from the psychiatrist, whose business card is found at the scene and who testifies that Okuyama is his patient and not a violent criminal. The police’s belief in his harmlessness hinges on a report from the man who created the mask, a testimony that ultimately lets Okuyama walk free. In the night that follows, they stroll through a city where everyone wears a mask, and the psychiatrist contemplates reclaiming the device—before deciding to let Okuyama keep it, granting him a dangerous kind of freedom. The two men part with a handshake that suddenly turns fatal as Okuyama stabs the psychiatrist to death.
Interwoven with this central thread is a separate, haunting tale drawn from Abe’s novel. It centers on a young woman whose face bears a disfiguring scar on the right cheek and neck. She works in a psychiatric ward and lives with her brother, their lives shadowed by memories of war and a shared fear of another conflict. The imagery surrounding her, from the hospital setting to the sea, and the implied memory of Nagasaki, signals that her scars are not only physical but emblematic of larger traumas. Isolated by her appearance, she finds herself drawn to her brother in a moment of romantic overture, and he accepts, even as the complexities of their bond hover in the margins of tragedy. On a seaside trip to an inn, she dresses in white, removes her shoes, and wades into the ocean, suggesting a possible suicide. Her brother’s anguished cry as he watches from the inn window lingers as a stark counterpoint to the first story’s twists and turns.
Throughout, the film’s images of contour and concealment invite reflection on how appearances govern perception, and how the masks we wear—literal and metaphorical—can both shield and destroy. The dual narrative explores the allure and danger of erasing one’s authentic self, revealing a world in which identity is unstable, moral boundaries are tested, and the line between victim and perpetrator can blur in the most unsettling ways. The performances carry a quiet intensity, and the film’s dreamlike sequences insist that even away from the surface, the true self remains unsettled, waiting to surface in moments of crisis and confession.
