Where is the pit that people were supposed to fall into?

Otoshiana (Pitfall)

It actually took me a long time before I got into the mood of seeing a film like this. It goes well with my late tendency of watching films which might not be the most accessible or obviously enjoyable to watch; obscure modern titles but also something avantgarde like this. At least the music was certainly very, very avantgarde – you’d think it’s some random noise until you start discovering some sort of pattern in the atonality of the music.

Among Criterion’s 3 films by Teshigahara, “Pitfall” clearly stands out as a ‘beginner’ film. It’s less crazy, less stylish, a little less existentialist and much more funny than any of the other Teshigahara x Abe cooperations. There is something very down-to-earth about this story, even to the point of being extremely realistic – if you consider the existence of those ghost a plausible thing. Within the universe of “Pitfall”, they perfectly make sense. The realism of the story comes from the characters who, except for the child, never behave in an absurd way. Even the mysterious man in the white suit makes sense somehow, and one could consider that he is just some corporate goon with a very perfidious plan of destroying the unions. Why not?

The child is the true mystery of the film, and where the existentialism of the film culminates. Sure, there are the dead characters asking themselves why they died (which is very human). But the kid is much more interesting, because everybody completely ignores it. It is as if people lived in a world in which sex is pointless and there is no future (i.e. no children to take care of), and the true ghost is actually the child who sees everything but doesn’t say anything. It is no surprise that the last take of the film indeed shows the kid running through the meticulously geometric looking ghost town.

On top of that, there are some politics involved… As to be expected from Abe, almost every aspect of humanity can be found in this film, death, relationships, the aforementioned politics, work and money, crimes and morals, even your predictable rape scene of the day. Maybe the movie is not as visually striking as “Woman in the Dunes”, or as elaborate as a story like “The Face of Another”, but personally “Pitfall” might even be my favorite. I think it’s a forgotten gem with so much potential as an exposé to existentialist questions.