Woman in the Dunes [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs]

Overview

When entomologist Jumpei (Eiji Okada) travels to sand dunes on an expedition, he is met by a group of people who offer him a place to spend the night. They soon lead him to a house at the bottom of a sandpit. Upon climbing into the pit, he finds a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) living alone. Placed there by the villagers, her task is to dig sand out of the pit -- not only so that they can avoid getting buried, but so that the locals can use it for construction. The next morning, when Jumpei attempts to leave, he finds that the ladder which brought him into the pit is no longer there and the villagers inform him that he must stay and help the woman dig. After trying to get out of the pit, Jumpei takes his anger out on the woman--only to soon become her lover. After some time, he slowly gives in to accepting his predicament. This interesting story takes a simple yet effective route in philosophical allegory, focusing upon the couple's oppressive confinement and the force of their physical attraction to each other in spite of--or because of--their situation. Taken from the novel by Kobo Abe, director/producer Hiroshi Teshigahara completed this visually stunning feature on a budget of only $100,000. Winning a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1964, the poetic Woman in the Dunes would go on to be nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Film (1964) and Best Director (1965).

Product Details

Release Date:	08/23/2016
UPC:	0715515185011
Original Release:	1964
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:27:00
Sales rank:	16,113

Special Features

Video essay on the film from 2007 by film scholar James Quandt Four short films from director Hiroshi Teshigahara's early career: Hokusai (1953) Ikebana (1956) Tokyo 1958 (1958) Ako (1965) Teshigahara and Abe, a 2007 documentary examining the collaboration between Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe, featuring interviews with film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, film programmer Richard Peña, set designer Arata Isozake, Producer Noriko Nomura, and screenwriter John Nathan Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Eiji Okada	Jumpei Niki
Kyôko Kishida	The Woman
Koji Mitsui	Villager
Hiroko Ito	Villager
Sen Yano	Villager
Ginzo Sekigushi	Villager
Kiyohiko Ichihara	Villager
Tamotsu Tamura	Villager
Hiroyuki Nishimoto	Villager
Toru Takemitsu	Composer

Technical Credits

Kobo Abe

Hiroshi Teshigahara	Director
Kobo Abe	Screenwriter
Kiichi Ichikawa	Producer
Tadashi Ohno	Producer

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Woman in the Dunes
1. Logos/Opening Credits
2. Collector
3. Village
4. Woman
5. Beetles
6. Work
7. Escape
8. Captive
9. Deception
10. Rations
11. Suffering
12. Ideas
13. Sand
14. Visions
15. Rescue
16. Diversions
17. Bath
18. Rope
19. Failure
20. Three Months
21. Business
22. Masks
23. Water
24. December
25. Help!
26. Ocean
1. Chapter 1 [28:54]
2. Chapter 2 [:26]
Disc #2 -- Woman in the Dunes
1. New Modernist Cinema [2:06]
2. Sofu Teshigahara [7:25]
3. Sogetsu Rumpus Room [4:12]
4. Unique Collaboration [6:30]
5. Existentalist Leanings [5:27]
6. Tradition And Discovery [8:42]
7. Chapter 7 [:25]
1. Chapter 1 [22:53]
1. Chapter 1 [15:34]
2. Chapter 2 [16:52]
1. Chapter 1 [23:59]
1. Chapter 1 [28:39]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Woman in the Dunes
   Play The Movie
   Chapters
   Video Essay
      Play
      Chapters
   Trailer
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On
      Subtitles: Off
Disc #2 -- Woman in the Dunes
   Teshigahara And Abe
      Play
      Index
   Short Films
      Hokusai
         Play
         Chapters
      Ikebana
         Play
         Chapters
      Tokyo 1958
         Play
         Chapters
      Ako
         Play
         Chapters
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On
      Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

Woman in the Dunes is a landmark of 1960s art-house cinema that mesmerizes with its hypnotic logic and seduces with its lush sensuality. Recalling the existentialist absurdity of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit and Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, director Hiroshi Teshigahara spins this deceptively simple parable about a man inexplicably stuck in a hole with a lonely widow. He initially struggles against his assigned task of shoveling sand and attempts to escape, but, by the end of the film, like Sisyphus, he accepts his fate and does not leave when given the chance. Though noted Japanese novelist Kobo Abe's script deals with universal questions about life and existence, the film also has a particularly Japanese subtext about national identity in the face of Japan's rapid modernization after World War II. The film opens with the unnamed protagonist's looking like the model modern Japanese, dressed in Western garb and acting as an individual. Yet, after he accepts his role as part of that odd community, he is dressed in a traditional Japanese garment. Only then does the narrator reveal his name. The film's philosophical/sociological underpinnings aside, it is a stylistic tour-de-force. Critics at the time commented on the film's intoxicatingly erotic atmosphere, and Teshigahara's brilliant handing of the camera seems to communicate how it feels to touch a lonely widow's naked, sand-speckled back. Few films have so deftly explored the tactile aspects of cinema and no film has photographed sand with such vitality, making the dunes shift and tumble like a slithering viper. Woman in the Dunes is a brilliant, surreal work that will linger for days, if not years, after viewing.

All Movie Guide - Jonathan Crow