The Hole No One Gets Out Of

Otoshiana(Pitfall)(1962) Directed By Hiroshi Teshigahara

Dopplegangers, ghosts, mines, demons in white, union in-fighting, political dismay, and wonder full black and white photography of murders along a river bank.Hiroshi Teshigahara and author Kobe Abe made four films together "Pitfall", "A Woman In The Dunes", "The Face Of Another", and "The Ruined Map".So far Ive seen the first three, which are all black and white, and they are all top marks, for conceptual brilliance, visual beauty, talented performances, and devastating emotional flair.Teshigahara/Abe, in this period were the Japanese avant garde's Powell/Pressburger.A man leaves a mine, in hopes of finding work somewhere with a union. He finds another mine, but is killed when he arrives by a mysterious man in white.He bears a striking resemblance to a current leader of one of the unions, and this only fans the flames of hatred between the "big mine" union, and the "little mine" union.The man killed at the beginning lingers on in the film, as a ghost trying to solve the case of his murder, which another ghost warns him, "won't make him fell any better." It veers so freely and naturally between, the life and after-life of labourers, that the two become indistinguishable. The comic, horrific, philosophic, and photo-realistic elements that might seem an unnatural blend, but they come together here as if they could fit no other way. "Pitfall" is my least favorite Teshigahara film, and it's also his first, but for fans of Japanese cinema and those interested in good movies in general, the black and white Abe trilogy is a must see, on par with Kurasawa, Antonini, and Imamura.See one, see em all.

Sand And Sensuality

Suna no Onna (Woman In The Dunes) (1964)

by Hiroshi Teshigara

Adjust for 1960's pacing, and you will find one of Japan's best pieces of cinema. The story is one simple enough to not really require subtitles, at least at first, a young professor studying insects gets trapped in a sandstorm and finds shelter amidst a strange house in the middle of the desert with a "mysterious woman', after the storm clears the man realizes he is at the bottom of a huge sand pit, with only a quaint house built in it's center.
The professor soon comes to realize that he cannot leave, neither the crumbling sand walls, nor the enigmatic villagers who bring supplies, will let him.
He learns that he is not the first and is not expected to be the last to "work the pit".
He then begins in a relationship with the mystery woman which is strained by his perpetual need to escape and her fear of abandonment and the outside world.
story is simple and complex, the cinematography beautiful and up to modern standards, the sand is made to move, ebb, and resemble water at numerous times, giving what could otherwise be a barren wasteland a kind of heat induced feverish tangibility and character.
The biggest drawback is this films pace which at times seems bleakly endless at other times vivid and powerful.
There is some sensuality in the film, but it doesn't really seem to be the film's cornerstone, what sex there is, seems more about contrasting flesh with the grainy roughness of sand, the harshness of isolation with the pleasures of coming together.
Anyway if you've enjoyed Kurusawa, at his most philosophical, and older Japanese films in the past and have the necessary patience, it's really excellent film, that is much more tightly constructed than it's surreal erotica tag lines might lead you believe.