Liverpool Sound and Vision * * *
Cast: Christopher Meloni, Jenna Elfman, Tavi Gevinson, Jordan Peele.
A Human Face is all that is needed to make a person change their mind and perspective on most things, it is that connection we have, the pinpoint of recognising the similarity rather than the blank face of obscurity and blind hatred which makes us creatures that can feel empathy and love, even for those who have left us, who may have hurt us with words, who belong to a nation that wishes to see us humbled, subjugated, destroyed.
In the moment we can see into another’s eyes, if we are not devoid of empathy and a spark of humanity, we can understand one another, we might not talk the same language, but it is surely the eyes that express the hurt and pain, the joy, the sorrow, the confusion and the hope with far greater sincerity than any speech or threat can ever portray.
The Twilight Zone‘s A Human Face might appear to a simple explanation of this, and in all fairness to the viewer it would not be an episode that they feel they wouldn’t have found their mind being stretched as with other storylines that the notable series has dealt with, but that would be missing a large point, one that comes with the understanding of how we respond as a person, as a species, when someone looks at us through our own eyes and sees the hurt and confusion they have caused.
Whilst it is always refreshing to watch Jenna Elfman on television, the sense of wide-eyed wonder in which she brings to any part she performs, it is to Tavi Gevinson in which the story unfolds around, and her own sense of achievement that she makes her character’s initial innocence stand out with optimism and fear.
A Human Face is not a classic of the distinguished series, but it is perhaps the most honest, the one episode to which explains human nature in such a way that you cannot help but feel the empathy resolutely come off the screen and into your mind, maybe not hitting an unknown spot in your own dark recesses, but one that is clear, present and able to be acted upon.
Ian D. Hall