Woman in the Dunes
Woman in the Dunes • 2h 27m
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara • 1964 • Japan
Starring Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida
One of the 1960s’ great international art-house sensations, WOMAN IN THE DUNES (SUNA NO ONNA) was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic world of Hiroshi Teshigahara. Eiji Okada plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle found in a vast desert. When he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night with a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) in her hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema’s most unnerving and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of everyday life as a Sisyphean struggle—an achievement that garnered Teshigahara an Academy Award nomination for best director.
Up Next in Woman in the Dunes
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WOMAN IN THE DUNES Video Essay
The following video essay about WOMAN IN THE DUNES, by James Quandt of the Cinematheque Ontario (now TIFF Cinematheque), was recorded in 2007.
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Teshigahara and Abe
The following documentary, detailing the working relationship between director Hiroshi Teshigahara and writer Kobo Abe, features interviews with critics and a number of the filmmaker’s associates and friends, including film programmer and professor Richard Peña, Japanese-film scholars Donald Rich...
