Woman In The Dunes (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #37 extract: Woman in the Dunes (1964)

With Woman In The Dunes, Teshigahara shows an understanding textural movement that very few others - Tarkovsky is one of the few that come to mind - have ever projected. Imagery is not all that Teshigahara masters in this film, however. Though I do not feel confident in my understanding of this narrative as of now, there is a presence of futility and attraction in this film that implies a tremendous profundity in the symbol of a body of sand; trouble, an eighth of a millimeter in diameter, but in multiples of the millions, an unstoppable force. To see a man and woman trapped, bound and willingly immersed in a dune of amalgamated chaos is the source of this film's mesmerising quality. I will certainly be re-watching this in the future.