Women in the Dunes (1964)

An Avant-grade film from Japan, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

After the last film review from the dawn of cinema, FilmBulb now travels to Far East, Japan. What happens if you are held as a hostage in a pit surrounded by moving sands and your companion is a women, assuming that you (the one reading this) as a guy.

Jumpie Niki, yes it’s a name, is an entomologist, the one who studies about insects. Desperate to have his name in a book of his respective field, he goes far into a land of sand dunes, misses his last bus of the day to the city and helped by native villagers. Who take him to a sandpit, saying that it’s a widows house and she can provide you food and shelter. Her task is to shovel the sand from the bottom of the pit and send it back to top. The villagers refer Jumpie as a helper to her, unaware about this he tries to leave by morning only to find the rope ladder is taken away. He fails to climb the pit.

Slowly Jumpie realizes the situation, that the sand shovel by the widow is taken by the villagers and it’s sold to the city’s construction business.  First Jumpie is adamant not to work with her, the villagers cut their rations, starvation of water makes him to oblige to work. In between he tries to escape, but fails. A surrealistic relation takes place between the both, he accidently find a way to get water from the pit, doesn’t want to depend on the villagers, she gets pregnant and due to the labour she is taken away by the villagers. He then gets a chance to escape, but he doesn’t want to, the movie ends with his voice over that he is eager to tell the villagers about making the water from the pit and then escape another day. The final visuals are the missing list on the notice board of a police station that a man named Jumpie Niki is missing for seven years.

The logic of the film is sometimes odd to understand, why did the villagers take the sand for the construction, is it really happening in Japan? Is the woman is held captive or is she there for the sand business. Why he didn’t escape finally when he got a chance.

Photography & Background:-

The movie camera goes too close-up shots by capturing the natural murals in the sand. It’s a black and white film, but still good work in the cinematography, some of the shots are in extreme close-up and it takes some effort to identify of what it is. Equally the background score, typical Japanese. Especially the kind of folk when the villagers ask Jumpie of perform the manly and perverts act on the widow. The film then won the special jury in Cannes and two Oscar nominations.

Philosophy of the film:-

The film questions the existence of a being, in initial scenes Jumpie is not happy with his city life, but he finds himself in the pit he wants to move out, saying even a monkey can do this work of shovelling. Then he finds a way to get water, he want to share it with the villagers and bring a change in their life and presumably leads the life there.