Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20745 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-31
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Director's Cut, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Synopsis
A woman who lives in a sand pit on the beach is given a man. Japanese dialogue with subtitles.

Customer Reviews

"The nail that stands up, must be hammered down."
Hiroshi Teshigahara may not rank as highly in the echelons of Japanese directors as Ozu or Kurosawa, nevertheless he has produced a classic in Woman of the Dunes.

A professor in search of rare butterflies (what else when the film is concerned with transformation) on the dune coast of Western Japan, misses his transport home and is offered shelter by the local people in the strange sand pit home of a widow. All is fine until he tries to leave, and finds that the villagers have other ideas, for the widow needs help in shifting the sand from her pit, an endless and thankless task, and he is held captive. At first he rails against his captivity, sometimes violently, until he finds a purpose in this case the need to keep sand out of the water butt, and he no longer thinks of escape.

Filmed in 1964 at a time when Japan was undergoing a period of growing discontent, the student riots were only a few years away. The film serves as an excellent metaphor for the problems a rapidly changing society has with maintaining the belief systems of the past, and the alienation found in progress. The professsor at first views the peasants as inferior and in the way of his work, he is the face of the self centred modern Japan. But through his captivity he comes to see the need for conformity and a unity of purpose.

If you are interested in cinema, not just Japanese cinema, then I strongly recommend this film, you will probably read something completely different into the film than I did, therein lies its beauty.

Wrong running time
Just to point out that the running time listed above is incorrect. The BFI edition is the full uncut version, at 141 minutes PAL speed.

A dark study of society
A rather intense and at first surreal but the more you examine plausible, film. In essence it deals with a Japanese Porfessor who is trapped by rather cruel villagers whilst on a research trip, once there he is thrown to a woman who lives trapped in a pit.
Thats the bare bones of the plot, but the plot serves to show the cruelty of society and the grotesque lies required by groups to avoid culpability.
Hope that makes sense.