Woman in the Dunes

UPC: 014381593822

Studio: Image Entertainment

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Adult Situations, Not For Children]

Summary: 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). ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

Category: Avant-garde / Exp

Awards: Best Foreign Language Film – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Special Jury Prize – Cannes Film Festival

Features: [None specified]

Woman in the Dunes

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 01/04/2000

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 127 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Chapter Selection
0. Chapter Selection
1. Main Title [2:00]
2. Research in the Desert [6:03]
3. A Place for the Night [8:00]
4. Getting Acquainted [7:48]
5. Trying to Get Out [9:50]
6. False Hope [5:57]
7. Running Out of Water [7:27]
8. In the Heat of the Moment [10:46]
9. Giving In [6:31]
10. Working Together [3:43]
11. Secret Plan [7:53]
12. No Way Out [11:16]
13. Under Pressure [9:41]
14. Putting on a Show [6:30]
15. New Water Source [7:45]
16. New Problems [7:06]
17. A Prisoner No More? [4:47]
18. Missing Persons Report [:42]

Jonathan Crow

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. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Ginzo Sekigushi  Actor 
Toru Takemitsu  Composer (Music Score) 
Hiroshi Teshigahara  Director 
Kobo Abe  Screenwriter 
Eiji Okada  Actor 
Kyoko Kishida  Actor 
Koji Mitsui  Actor 
Hiroko Ito  Actor 
Sen Yano  Actor 

Country: Japan