Woman in the Dunes (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Very nice DVD with two disks and a booklet, English subtitles and excellent quality, I’ll buy from this seller again.

When I looked at this film some years ago I was so amazed at the interplay of male to female, where the male "visitor" is trapped back to earth by his female captor/'host'; a sand pit becomes the entirety of both time and the world to these two where the male character at first finds that not only has his feminine counterpart been waiting for him but he cannot leave, his entomological peregrinations find him a captured specimen himself. He struggles to escape back into shallow knowledge when life overpoweringly waits for him to waken to it and take some interest. He does, and it's as if he could not have knew anything about life before that; he tries to escape once more but is caught in a pool of quicksand, the local villagers pull him out and bring him back to the hut at the bottom of the sand pit. He struggles with vanity, even tries to take the woman captive instead but that proves feeble too; life is overpowering to his self-centered view and he succumbs to another world that had up to then been of no interest to him. Just the scenes of the male character trying to climb free of the sand pit are worth viewing as another metaphor for self-centered need trying to reach an unattainable goal, finding meaning somewhere that repudiates understanding itself. Taking a makeshift grappling hook and trying to break free has to have some similarity to trying to complete a graduate degree, over and over he tries to pull himself toward some point free of the mundane, stultifying sand. But he finally grows to accept having disappeared somewhere where there's not anything more to do than to shovel falling sand night after endless night; acceptance of something in phenomenology/existentialism called "facticity" seems to finally make the predicament more understandable, there's a continuity that becomes more meaningful than the pursuit of a superficial knowledge that he'd had before. Life becomes more involved for somebody who'd actually only had to play everything merely by the numbers before, so the continuity of life had finally re-shaped a character that had only been hovering over it. A memorable movie, worth viewing over and over.

CRITERION COLLECTION has done it again! Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes (1964) offers of course the ultimate in cinematographic experience, one of a handful of truly exceptional films that continue to grow on you (I first saw it in 1971). Roger Ebert (in 1998) called it “radical, hard-edged and challenging” and detected an “almost pornographic underlying situation,” for Strictly Film School it is “a spare and haunting allegory of human existence.” In its reincarnation on this superbly re-mastered Blue-ray disc for home viewing, Woman in the Dunes exerts its magic in an even more compelling way. With Woman in the Dunes Teshigahara to me seems uniquely and almost effortlessly to transcend the constraints of his chosen medium as he meshes the different elements of camera, script and soundtrack into a seamless web of meaning. In that sense talk about “Sisyphus” or “parable of life” (Ebert) only gets in the way. As the woman lies asleep naked and exhausted and the camera closes in on the combined texture of skin and sand, all the meaning you want is there. Just watch – and surrender. In the end that’s what the man does as he decides not to “escape” and so finds his freedom: final shots that couldn’t be more haunting for the meaning they convey. Seven years later the authorities finally list him as “missing.” Only then do we find out what he was called. MESMERIZING!

The acting was great but the premise was a bit off base for my taste. I love Japanese Golden Era movies but this one wasn't for me.

I saw this movie at a film archive many moons ago, and it was one of those very few theatrical experiences which are so deeply impressive you can count them on your fingers. Over the years, I tried watching this movie on standard definition only to be disappointed by the loss of texture and detail which make it so unique. Well, Criterion has truly done one of their greatest jobs on this masterpiece, allowing the home viewer to experience it in all the astonishing cinematheque glory it so richly deserves. Tears began to well up in my eyes as I watched the minute waves of sand rolling down the hillside - you can literally see each grain! The macroscopic beauty of skin during the lovemaking scene, the barbs on the legs of the captured insects - all stunningly sharp and tactile! I am reawakened to what really great cinema can be - profound ideas articulated in vivid physical, sensual terms. I couldn't stop thinking about this movie for days afterwards, just like the time I first saw it. BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO CRITERION!

At first this film might sort of drive you crazy because it's hard to imagine the situation actually occurring in reality. But then as it moves forward it becomes clear that it's more of a kind of fable or fairy tale with a moral. The acting is exceptional. The camera work is phenomenal. The bleak desolate landscapes are spectacular in their own way. If you like an intense film that deals with subjects such as existentialism and whether or not life has meaning, you will enjoy this.

The final scene which is the summation of the theme was cut off and not shown in this rendition. It is of the two principal characters and their child standing between them dressed in traditional attire; viewed from behind as they gaze out toward the sea. Shame on whoever made this decision. It stinks!!!

原作は読んでいました。映像でも見れてよかったです。

This masterpiece deserves to be on Blu Ray. That said, the DVD is very good quality.

Sehr, sehr außergewöhnlicher Film. Zwar nicht in Deutsch.. Bleibt Jahre in Erinnerung.. Lässt einen nicht los.. Ein Meisterwerk. Möchte bald das Buch gerne dazu lesen.

Una película sorprendente. Una película filosófica que te envuelve visual y acústicamente. Criterion es garantía de calidad, pero es una edición sobresaliente, con muchos extras incluyendo cuatro cortos del director

The sand should have won best actor