La Femme du sable

What is heralded as a classic piece of Japanese cinema and I suppose a rave at Cannes during it's time, Woman In the Dunes is a great film but certainly not to everyones tastes.

A man who is searching for a unique insect in a sandy dessert area ends up trapped in a sandpit where a young woman lives. It becomes apparant that while the man can not escape the woman decides this is her future and that there is little she can do but accept it.

The film is an old black and white film, and many a times it is hard to see what is going on. The story is slow paced, and there is a lot of confusion through much of the film as to why the characters are in this 'unusual' situation. However, I completely got into it and was absorbed by the man who was felt trapped like an animal, and the woman who was accepting of her fate and somewhat comfortable. Also the shots of the dunes are spectacular, the film feels totaly claustrophobic, and it's one of this films which you keep asking yourself every 5 minutes, "How the heck did the film this!?".

But because of its slow nature and somewhat snail pacing and payoff many might not like it. Too bad.

Rating 8 out of 10.

In my interpretation this movie is a reflection on Zen philosophy: Just like Zen monks that sweep the courtyards of monasteries and devote themselves to the most humble tasks to find inner harmony, Niki finds inner rest in the daily work of removing the sand, solving water supply problems and living a confined live. The movie suggests the modern lives we live in the big cities isolate us from our needs and ourselves. Just like a Zen garden, that is designed to mirror nature and men, the people in the dunes reflect our daily struggles and confinements. The surreal setting is a necessity to convey the message of the film. There is nothing goofy about the pits and how people behave in there. It is just hard for us western people to see the transcendence there.

I watched this movie on a Japanese Film Festival in Berlin in 1993. I can't remember all the details but the movie really mesmerized me. It is a very unique work and I wonder why it doesn't have the cult status of other movies.

A Tokyo schoolteacher Niki Jumpei (Eiji Okada) and part time entomologist travels to a remote area in the hope of studying a rare species of beetle, his aim is to find it and have it named after himself. His first morning there he spends collecting specimens in jars from the sand, he is approached by a rather suspicious local, who questions him as to his motives for being there, Niki dispels the locals suspicions that he is some authoritative figure snooping and goes on his way. Resting briefly in an old boat, he ponders humanity's dependence on paper qualifications to prove our credentials to others, passports, driving licences, university certificates, medical certificates etc and what a suspicious world it would be without them. Niki ( incidentally a name we only find out a the end of the film) falls asleep with the hazy sun beating down on him, he is awakened by the same local, who asks him, how he is going to get home, as he has missed his last bus. Somewhat bewildered Niki says he'll have to walk, the local man says he might be able to help and offers to help find him a bed for the night in the nearby village. Niki is led through the treacherous dunes until they come across a large pit, at the bottom of which lives a woman, it is here that Niki will spend the night.

Niki immediately questions the woman, as to why she would live in such a desolate place, in a ramshackle house where the sand is constantly flowing through holes in the roof and he is amazed to find that her nightly Sisyphean task involves filling baskets with sand that has blown into the pit and having it hoisted up by the locals. After feeding him, the woman tells him he doesn't have to help on his first night here, he finds this a curious statement as he is only staying one night? The truth behind the pit is soon revealed as Niki finds that there is no way out of the pit, the rope ladder having been removed by the locals.

Teshigahara is perhaps best known for his surreal and existential works, Woman in the Dunes fits right into this category. The setting of the sand dunes with the blinding sun gives the film an otherworldly dreamlike quality, with continuing rivers of sand also adding to this quality. The revelation that he is being kept captive is also a rather scary and intriguing, the film traces Niki's mixed emotions of anger and aggression, his denial of his captors, his change of heart and the fact he would stop at nothing to get the merest of rewards from them. His transformation is complete as he himself turns into a captor, of the woman that he now shares his life with.

The film is an epic at almost 2 ½ hours, its pace is incredibly slow but strangely it still doesn't feel that long, this viewer being drawn in to the complexities of the film. There's also a very sensual and sexual subtext, with the burning heat and little to do during the day and with the woman's recommendation that they sleep naked because the sand will chaff them, it is inevitable that sexual liaisons will happen and they do, sometimes it rough and ready and they wrestle each other, sometimes its sensuous as they provocatively wash the sand from each other in some very intimate moments.

Woman of the Dunes I have heard is full of subtext and hidden meanings, some are contradictory to the writer and directors visions so its hard to tell exactly on this my first viewing, exactly what they are so I will not even try to do so, I'll just sit back and let the film wash through my mind again and maybe it will all fall into place. The ending is controversial I would say, I can imagine it causes divide amongst those who have seen it, but in the context of the surreal setting and qualities of the film, I think it suits it fine, if nothing else it will get you talking about it, I think it's a film ripe for over analysis, so again I won't.

Hiroshi Teshigahara's "Woman in the Dunes" is truly a unique movie. It's about an entomologist who goes on a holiday, only to find himself trapped in huge sand pit with a woman. The woman has no will to get out of the sand (it's been "broken"--like that of a stable horse--no doubt), but he refuses to live a "meaningless" life in the sand pit (like the woman). He tries to get out, but it's all in vain: the wall of sand is an impenetrable barrier between him and his "freedom." And so the story goes. The sand pit, I guess, is a metaphor for humanity's existentialist plight. Like the mythological Sisyphus, who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down again, the two characters in this film dig sand out of their pit--but the sand keeps coming back....which raises the question: If life is meaningless--as Satre and Camus have said--what will we do? Do we keep digging? Do we opt for suicide instead? Or what? This is one of those films that haunt you after you see it; you'll keep thinking of it during subsequent days and even weeks. It is also distinguished by its luscious and crisp black and white deep focus photography. "The Woman in the Dunes" is (sadly) a far too little-known cinematic treasure that is thought-provoking, beautiful, erotic, and even eerie. Once you see it, you won't soon forget it.

If it's at all possible to know nothing about this movie before you watch it, then do so. The predicament a Japanese entomologist finds himself in will become apparent soon enough. Director Hiroshi Teshigahara and cinematographer Hiroshi Segawa do a phenomenal job of creating unforgettable images of sand through tight shots and unique camera angles, and it may make you feel hot, sticky, and somewhat claustrophobic just watching it. Eiji Okada turns in a solid performance as the entomologist, and Kyōko Kishida is brilliant as the 'woman in the dunes' who he meets. She has accepted her fate, difficult as it is, and tries to get Okada to accept it as well.

The film reflects existential, not Zen, themes, and belongs with Camus and Beckett. Life is meaningless in this pit, there is no escape, and the day to day toil is not only a struggle, but absurd and nonsensical. There is clearly a parallel being drawn to the bugs being buried in the sand as well as struggling futilely in test tubes earlier in the movie. It also reflects man's cruelty in the bugs pinned on boards to the forced labor. The scene towards the end, where the villagers look impassively down through masks and glasses with the taiko drums pounding, demanding a lewd display, is chilling.

There are a couple of very raw erotic scenes between Okada and Kishida, heightened by the conditions they find themselves in, and notably occurring as one wipes the other down. In trying to free ourselves of this painful world and the grime it coats us with, if even for only moments, we turn to the embrace of another, and take comfort in carnal moments. It's beautiful and somewhat pathetic at the same time. Okada also experiences a moment of transcendence when he invents a water pump, and sees it as a higher achievement than his original goal of discovering a new species of beetle and having it named after him. There is humanity again, displaying intelligence in improving his lot, and vanity. It's a somewhat grim film, but there is solace in these things. Definitely worth watching.