Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. With Eiji Okada, Kyôko Kishida, Hiroko Itô, Kôji Mitsui. An entomologist on vacation is trapped by local villagers into living with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

Woman in the Dunes or Woman of the Dunes (砂の女 Suna no Onna, "Sand woman") is a 1964 Japanese New Wave film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and starring Eiji Okada and Kyōko Kishida. It received positive critical reviews and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Suna No Onna | Woman of the Dunes (1964). Splendid, resonant allegorical drama. A scientist studying insects in the Japanese sand dunes finds himself trapped.

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.

Amazon.com: The Woman in the Dunes (9780679733782): Kobo Abe: Books

When entomologist Jumpei (Eiji Okada) travels to sand dunes on an expedition, he is met by a group of people who offer him a place to spend the night. They soon lead him to a house at the bottom of a sandpit. Upon climbing into the pit, he finds a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) living alone. Placed there by the villagers, her task is to dig sand out of the pit -- not only so that they can avoid getting buried, but so that the locals can use it for construction. The next morning, when Jumpei attempts to leave, he finds that the ladder which brought him into the pit is no longer there and the villagers inform him that he must stay and help the woman dig. After trying to get out of the pit, Jumpei takes his anger out on the woman--only to soon become her lover. After some time, he slowly gives in to accepting his predicament. This interesting story takes a simple yet effective route in philosophical allegory, focusing upon the couple's oppressive confinement and the force of their physical attraction to each other in spite of--or because of--their situation. Taken from the novel by Kobo Abe, director/producer Hiroshi Teshigahara completed this visually stunning feature on a budget of only $100,000. Winning a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1964, the poetic Woman in the Dunes would go on to be nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Film (1964) and Best Director (1965). ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

"I love staying at local homes,” the man says, accepting an

Is Kobo Abe’s strange, bleak novel The Woman in the Dunes, about a man imprisoned in a pit of sand, a parable of damnation or salvation? Both, argues David Mitchell. It is a metaphor for the human predicament.