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WOMAN IN THE DUNES begins when a Japanese entomologist visits a remote and sandy area of Japan in search of rare specie of tiger beetle. Unfortunately, he misses the last bus back to town and has to sleep in the home of one of the villagers, something he thinks will be an interesting experience. I suppose he should have expected something strange was going on when he found out the house was at the bottom of a sandpit, but he doesn't seem to find this at all strange. What he does find strange, however, is that when he awakens during the night, the woman is not sleeping, but is, instead, outside shoveling sand away from the house. He goes back to sleep, thinking her bizarre behavior is really not his problem, but in the morning, he finds that the rope ladder he used to descent to the woman's house is gone and he is trapped.

The woman explains to her visitor that both her husband and daughter died in a sandstorm and now, her visitor is expected to remain and help her shovel the sand and send it up to the surface in buckets. In fact, it's necessary, she tells him, for she can't do it alone and, if they don't do it together, the house (as well as the neighboring house) will not only cave in, but the villagers above will have nothing to sell.

If the above doesn't seem to make any sense, then you've caught the point of the film very well. Life, it seems, is, more often than not, pointless. And, we are captives of this pointlessness. Like Sisyphus, we roll our personal rock back to the top of the hill each and every day only to find it back again at the bottom the next morning.

At first, the male visitor in WOMAN IN THE DUNES refuses to accept his fate. He tries every means he can think of to escape. The woman, however, is of a different mindset altogether and she embraces her fate and her life and, of the two, she does seem the far happier and more content.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES is a very powerful film and one that is, I think, absolutely flawless. Of course, it helped greatly that the book from which it was adapted was a flawless masterpiece as well.

The cinematography is WOMAN IN THE DUNES is gorgeous. This film, more than any other I've ever encountered, uses visual images to the greatest advantage. The shots of sand are mesmerizing. The sand that covers the body of both the man and the woman is visually seductive. And, one shot of sand raining down on the head of the man as he tries to escape is simply breathtaking. WOMAN IN THE DUNES IS filled with images such as these and their cumulative effect is close to soul shattering.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES is also a very seductive and erotic film. The man and woman are trapped, seemingly forever, in a fate they cannot escape. They have no one to care for them but each other, no one to love but each other, no way in which to find pleasure but in each other.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES is, I think, a very pessimistic film for most westerners, who like to feel they are masters of their fate. Some things, however, simply can't be controlled and the best we can do is alter our reaction to them.

The ending of WOMAN IN THE DUNES is quite surprising, but after some reflection, I saw it as inevitable.

I know WOMAN IN THE DUNES is certainly not going to be a film for everyone, or even for the majority of viewers. It's very slow paced, very interior and introspective and very "arty." It is gorgeous, though, and it is very, very provocative. I couldn't recommend it, or Kobo Abe's book, more highly. WOMAN IN THE DUNES was a "must have" DVD for me.

Dummies need not apply ....
Ok so if you are reading movie reviews of a 1964 subtitled B&W film from a Japanese director you may already have passed the test. I bought this film since it was advertised as haunting, erotic and unforgettable. Two out of three ain't bad since I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since seeing woman in the dunes yesterday afternoon.

The imagery in the movie is out of this world as a young entymologist (studies bugs) wants to escape the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and find a bug in the dunes of a rmote part of Japan that will make him famous. The bug he discovers is himself as, after missing the bus, he dropped into a sand pit in the dunes to help a young woman contiually dig the sand out of the hole while the villagers keep them fed just like worker bugs. Seems like the poor vilagers decided this was the cheapest way for them to avoind the sand dunes taking over the whole village.

It doesn't take long for our hero to realize that he's been tricked and he is now in about the same situation as one of the sand bugs he hunts for. (The director spoon feeds us several scenes in which the camera takes a super close ups of skin and hair that looks not unlike bug pictures on a museum wall) Although excape is not impossible our hero undergoes a metamorphisis as he discovers that he got there since he wanted to escape from it all and he certainly did. The inevitablility of sex in the dune is of course fulfilled but I got the distinct impression that our hero never really falls in love with the woman in the dunes but rather begins to understand her and the inevitability of her life.

The final decision then was his to make ....

Art of Teshigahara expansive as the Sahara
Abe dealt with opposites, with his stories sliding from one extreme to another, back and forth, with man unable to anchor himself to a point of equilibrium. In Woman in the Dunes, we have a modern man with freedom but no purpose. He's like another faceless citizen of an abstract state, his identity determined by his Identification card, his marital status, etc.
But, this man gets trapped inside a dune with a woman and loses what we define as freedom but he finds purpose. And, with this purpose he finds meaning. And with this meaning he finds a new concept of freedom.
Like the films of Shohei Imamura, Woman in the Dunes contemplates what it means to be Japanese in the modern era, with primitive impulses and habits rubbing shoulders all too comfortably(at least deceptively so)with enlightened universalist ideas. The hero of Woman in the Dunes is a liberated modern Japanese suddenly trapped within a thereom of Old Japan with no sense of individuality. Yet, within this primitivist lab setting, he again finds his individuality. Life of Teshigahara was, indeed, an example of this tension between the new and old. He was a modern artist with great deal of respect for tradition(consider films such as Rikyu). Also, he sacrificed his film career for a long period to maintain the family business.

Teshigahara was a visual poet and a calligrapher. He images are both minimalist and eloquent. The music by Toru Takemitsu beautifully and hauntingly echo the emotions and ideas projected in the film.