Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Onna)

Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Onna)
Directed by: Hiroshi Teshihagara
Starring: Eiji Okada and Kyoko Kishida
Year: 1964
Call No.: Other 791.4372 SUN
Location: Film Village, library@esplanade

Looking for solitude from the hectic city life, an amateur entomologist, Niki Junpei, travels to the barren outlands. He hopes to find a new species of insect that will see his name recorded for posterity. Engrossed, Junpei misses the last bus home. The local villagers suggest he stay the night and the tired man gladly takes up the offer. He is led to a decrepit hut located deep within a sand pit. Climbing down via a makeshift rope ladder, he passes the night there with the “landlady”. Morning comes; the ladder is gone; he is trapped. With no way out, Junpei finds that his nightmare is just beginning.

Kobo Abe adapts his own novel for the big screen, which is brought to vivid life by director Hiroshi Teshigahara. Shot stunningly by Hiroshi Segawa, Woman in the Dunes is a film filled with fascinating images designed to provoke, placate and perturb the viewer.

Witness, for example, how Teshigahara employs the extreme close-up: a nape here; the back of a thigh there; fingers moving sensually to their own silent rhythm. All disembodied, all glistening with sweat, all covered in the ever-present dirt, grime and sand. Ignited by a magnetic, sensuous charge, proximity seduces us to these images, like Junpei to the woman in the hut. But as with living in a shack surrounded by loose sand, the sense of danger is always around, always palpable.

So do we embrace our desires? Or do we heed the danger and do what we can to preserve ourselves? Junpei yearns for a quieter life and official name recognition. He gets both, but not in the way he imagined. On the other hand, the woman is ever aware of the threat from the sand. So she works tirelessly each night to clear its danger. This prompts Junpei to ask her: “Are you living to shovel, or shovelling to live?”

Therein the question lies the crux of the film. The hut in the pit is a microcosm of life, envisioned as a Sisyphean song looping and re-looping on the tracks of sleep, food, water and sex. Is there all there is? Or does the pursuit of more necessarily lead to the sacrifice of our very existence? The film provides no clear answers.

With this effort, Teshigahara has crafted a bizarre, but unforgettable masterpiece. So sink back, sit deep, and let yourself fall, like sand through an hourglass, into the spellbinding grasp of the Woman in the Dunes.

This review first appeared in High Browse, Auteurs and Authors edition.