Woman Of The Dunes

In Hiroshi Teshigahara's "Woman in the Dunes", a man is paired with a woman for a lifetime sentence, and his scope of the world shrinks dramatically at that same moment, leaving him to contemplate escape and abandonment throughout the rest of his days. We're to read this as allegory or metaphor, perhaps connecting the story to male anxieties about monogamy-but the finer details of the narrative are eminently strange and highly specific, enough to complicate any given interpretation of the material. A Japanese entomologist (Eiji Okada) is in search of a species rare enough to make his name on, which leads him to a village desert, and then into the dune, which is populated by the widow (Kyoko Kishida) he will be paired with. They are trapped below the surface, left to shovel and then sell the sand that surrounds them in order to prolong their own lives. These dramatic scenarios are quite literally existential, and the dialogue is written to match: "Are you shoveling to survive, or surviving to shovel?"

"Woman in the Dunes" is often compared to David Lynch, and in these abstract concerns about the psychological effects of domesticity, it connects to "Eraserhead" if nothing else. But the nature of Teshigahara's film is more literary-it sustains and develops its metaphors at a novelistic pace. Author Kobo Abe wrote both the source novel and the screenplay of "Woman in the Dunes," and his voice appears tethered to Teshigahara's: the intensely-textural visuals (extreme close-up's, of both bodies and sand, abound throughout) contrasting with the distant, often philosophical dialogue. Criterion's new Blu-ray release sheds further light on the working relationship between Teshigahara and Abe-one of the primary extra features documents their connection and working methods. The mid-length documentary, fittingly titled "Teshigahara and Abe," features comments from figures including their screenwriters, set designer, producers, and critics. The facts of their friendship serve only as a starting point, with the commentators also considering the state of Japanese cinema in the mid-1960s-and the way that Teshigahara and Abe helped to introduce "art film" aesthetics into a scene that had yet to digest them.

Teshigahara's status as an aesthetic maverick is borne out by the rest of the extra features, which illuminate how the director arrived at "Woman in the Dunes." (The disc also includes a theatrical trailer, and is accompanied by a booklet featuring an interview and a critical analysis.) A video essay provides biographical background on the director-detailing his pasts as a poet, a painter, and a legitimately radical floral arranger-as well as production notes regarding "Woman in the Dunes." But most revealing are four short films made in the 50s and 60s, all directed by Teshigahara. One is about Hokusai, another is about his family's Ikebana school, the third is a collaborative piece that aims to document Tokyo circa 1958, and the fourth is a narrative piece about a teenaged girl's daily life. Entitled "Ako," it is also written by Abe, and is similarly defined by evocative textures both physical and psychological. What this disc presents is not just "Woman in the Dunes," but a comprehensive record of their working relationship, one that would continue for years to come.

"Woman in the Dunes"
Blu-ray
Criterion.com
$39.95