| Kyoko Kishida in Woman in the Dunes. [click photo for larger version] |
Hiroshi Segawa's superb black-and-white cinematography makes Jumpei's "nature prison" one of the most memorably weird of all cinematic environments. From simple noirishly lit scenes of the two characters fumbling toward a relationship, there are constant cuts to disturbingly abstract sand patterns, close-ups of glistening flesh dotted with the inescapable sand, hallucinatory images of sand becoming rippling waves of water, and violent shakings of the house as the winds stir up the dunes. Director Teshigahara radically distorts the scale of things to bring a suffocating intensity to the lives of his trapped characters and show how out-of-whack this world is: in one shot, a single drop of water occupies the whole screen.
Inevitably, Jumpei and the woman get together in a series of encounters that still resonate with sensuality. In one of the film's most pleasurable sequences, a sensually shot bath becomes a prelude to lovemaking. However, their relationship is ultimately as unstable as their environment, and it becomes more so as Jumpei finds himself unable to reconcile his simple dream -- "freedom!" -- with his present situation. In a brutal scene, he's goaded into a sexual assault by a band of villagers, who stand high above at the rim of the pit, demanding he rape the woman as the price of escape. This is Teshigahara's vision of Bergman's missing God -- a pack of leering sadists controlling the destiny of a man and woman and forcing them into a debased state.
| DVD cover artwork for Woman in the Dunes. [click photo for larger version] |
Even the most beautiful imagery in the film has grim undertones. When the villagers fail to deliver their supplies on time, a parched Jumpei sees a mirage of rippling water framed by the door, a gorgeous image that recalls Ansel Adams in its cruel clarity. The doorway and window look out on the sky, always tantalizing Jumpei with the lure of a freedom that's ever out of reach.
Teshigahara's seemingly effortless ability to package profundities in such imagery made Woman in the Dunes a classic of its time, but one that's also transcended it.