Special Jury Prize at Cannes huh

Woman in the Dunes

In some ways, this movie is entirely different from most of what I see. This is most evident in the way I perceived time while I watched the film. It’s definitely not a ‘fast’ movie and if you think about it, nothing much happens. More than that, the director’s cut goes way over my usual limit (which is the typical two hours run time), yet I haven’t found myself looking at the clock even on single time. Watching the sand is breathtaking in this movie, very unlike Araya which plays around with the imagery of sand as well, but displays a completely different atmosphere. While “Araya” is a very realistic, documentary-style movie where sand is a sign of these people’s poor and harsh lives, “Woman in the Dunes” indeed is a somewhat Sartre-ish story.

In terms of the philosophy or the existentialism that we are supposed to find in the film, I’m not particularly fond of it. It doesn’t quite add up for me; while “No Exit” absolutely makes sense to me, and in “Waiting for Godot” I feel a lot of truth in it, there are elements in “Woman in the Dunes” that make me take it a little less serious than the Europeans. (In fact, Abe’s plays feel a lot like Beckett’s to me.) What are these things: First of all, the story made me utterly frustrated, which is a good thing because that’s how it’s supposed to be, and this impression was intensified by the marvelous directing and those haunting shots of the everlasting sand. But it made me scream “Of course I would want freedom! Freedom over everything!” inside. It felt absolutely clear to me that most aspects in this „allegory of life“ do not apply to real life.

I guess opinions can differ on this. When looking at the end, I realize that most people seem to have their own interpretation. First of all, there is the possibility that the woman could have died, and then we wonder why the man ended up staying. Is it because he was obsessed about his work? Because he thought the rest of the world does not offer him anything anymore? I don’t think so. I think it’s mainly because the fact that he found something that was like an achievement. Now he doesn’t want bugs to get recognition anymore, he wants to show off to the villagers. This is quite lame, I guess, but it seems plausible to me and ties into the past of the character (he wanted to get out his old life, he wants his name in a book etc.)

But oh God, it was frustrating to watch this movie sometimes, especially when the villagers showed their true colors in this not-really-rape scene. While „Dogville“ offers a relieving conclusion at the end, this movie has a 1984-type end and is even worse than 1984 because the man was forced into this situation at some point in his life, he was not born into it like most dystopian science fiction stories.

Not taking into the consideration the frustration I felt and the ‚meaningfulness‘ of the story, I think that Abe’s story is at least just as good as a Ionesco or a Beckett and Teshigahara’s directing has absolutely met my high expectations. The portrayal of the sand is absolutely breathtaking, and every single shot of the movie is extremely stylish in a very subtle way. In terms of film making, the film is a masterpiece in my opinion. Actually I kept thinking of Antonioni all the time.

Of course the actors were brilliant. I especially love Kishida Kyoko’s acting. And oh my God, she is „mukashi mukashi“ in Princess Tutu! (The narrator, that is.)

I am absolutely interested in Teshigahara’s other movies now, especially his collaborations with Abe. From what I saw in this film, I think that Teshigahara is absolutely underrated. Who cares about Ozu?