Once a lover of insects took a three-day vacation, a net and a camera, and went to some deserted beach coast. And there, in one of the villages, strange locals suggested that the city entomologist go down the cable stairs to a giant sand pit in which a woman lives. She could have spent the night. The visiting man did all that, and in the morning he discovered the first major trouble in his trip - the rope ladder was no longer there. However, the troubles did not end there. The woman told the man that now he needs to work, so that people from above sometimes let down water and food here.
The screen adaptation of Kobo Abe’s brilliant existential novel, which was taken up by documentary filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara by a host of world critics, is considered exemplary. Unfortunately, I cannot share this view. Although Teshigahara's film was certainly entertaining. Moreover, the director almost textbook transferred the events of the book to the screen, without cutting anything of significance, and without missing the sermon essence of the novel. But Abe, having invented a rather static novel in the plan of action, bribed with his language and very subtle descriptive characteristics of sex, loneliness, men and women. In this regard, the director had a much more difficult task - to convey the atmosphere of the novel on the screen, while not losing the viewer's vital interest in what is happening. And if Teshigahara’s atmosphere turned out fine – the movie turned out to be depressive-philosophical and moralizing, then it turned out worse with interest. A two-hour action, in which 90% of screen time is occupied by only two actors, is still tiresome in places.
However, critics appreciated this film more for figurative allegory. The main character in the film is a victim with elements of the “Swedish syndrome”, who first falls into a trap, and then begins to rethink his “need” in this world. Why rush to freedom when it can be “real” even crazy work, for example, digging up sand every day so that it does not overwhelm the hut? Critics also expressed a certain reflection on the topic of sex, which savors abundantly in the film. Abe thought about sex through the prism of satiety. A hungry person wants to fuck only someone, but when the primary need is satisfied, the choice of form and content begins. Teshigahara clothed these ideas of the writer in quite frank (as for the mid-60s, and in general for Japan) scenes, including violence with elements of voyeurism.
And yet, I cannot call this film an epithet that comes close to the word “perfection.” Teshigahara is heavy. He is stingy on artistic images, and in the style of “Woman in the Sands” it is great to resemble a semi-documentary mix with built-in dialogues. The causal canvas of the whole story is lame, starting with the seed – why?, and ending with the final denouement – why? “Woman in the Sands” is a movie for festivalgoers and spectacles who imagine themselves to be smart. Mass audience in large portions of this format of cinema will be difficult to digest.
“Smart” will say that this movie is a complex construction about the moral confrontation between East and West, about the Kafkaesque man, about Heidegger’s existentialism of searching for his “I”. Bullshit, guys. It's a movie about a fucking squat and a woman in a hole who lured a nerd into their lair. With the right attitude, you can see it.
“Woman in the Sands” is one of the adaptations of the novels of the great Kobo Abe, shot by the no less great Hiroshi Teshigahara. This union of two geniuses of Japanese postwar art gave the world 4 full-length films, including Trap (1962), Alien Face (1966) and Burned Card (1968) and several short films. In 1964, “Woman in the Sands” received a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1965 it was nominated for an Academy Award in the nomination “Best Foreign Language Film”, and in 1966 the master Teshigahara himself was nominated for best director. Unfortunately, the statuettes could not be obtained in either the first or the second case. (Italian “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” won Best Film in English, and in 1966 Robert Wise won Best Director for “The Sound of Music”). Despite this, the film became a cult. Largely due to the sublime artistic quality inherent in all Japanese. Incredible angles, fascinating play of light shade, sensual photography of the human body. And for the brilliant visualization of the movement of sand, in my humble opinion, Hiroshi Segawa should have received an Oscar for the best camera work.
The plot tells about school teacher Niki Jumpei, who in his spare time is fond of insects. After leaving for a weekend on the coast in the sandy desert, he misses the last bus and decides to stay overnight in the village. Local residents welcome the guest and offer him to stay in the house of a young woman. On the rope ladder, he descends to the bottom of the sand pit, where the hut is located. In the morning it turns out that there is no ladder and he is locked in this sand cage with a lonely woman. He has to run away somehow.
The theme of the work is the idea that the real cell is not around, but in your own brain. What many of us think of as freedom is actually another cage. Schedules, the pursuit of success, public opinion, the pursuit of luxury are all cells like a deep pit. And you can get out of this pit only by coming to terms with your natural self, find harmony with the world and nature within yourself. It is these principles of Taoism that Kobo Abe contrasts with the Western world with its prudence and unification.
“The sand pit is our world, a ‘those’ who are at the top is the God who looks how we swarm if we are hardworking then we get fruit.”
If you fell into a pit and began to scream and call for help to save yourself, then you [psychological spoiler], if you began to prepare an improvised ladder, then you [psychological spoiler], and if you settled down more conveniently and began to live there, then you are Kobo Abe.
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Twenty years ago he worked as a small official, whose main function was statistics. The darkness of the reports is greater than the other. And this is what caught my eye. In many forms, there was a pattern like "f*** of them women." Outwardly, it seemed that there were people, and there were women, and sometimes next to them were “f*** of them disabled” or “f*** of them persons from prison”. So the company of the women put out of brackets was specific, while the women themselves quickly depersonalized and turned into a kind of statistical unit like a unit of strategy.
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Many nations, countries or social groups have myths and legends. If you imagine them in the form of a house, then white myths are a facade or advertising stretch. Japanese women have a lot of them. For example, in Europe and America, forgive the ducks that are needed only to satisfy lust, but in Japan - geisha. Highly moral and educated persons, carrying the cursed male family culture, art and other spirituality. If you take modern Japan or fans of it, then many will call the word “chan”, which also often carries something obviously positive about these and other things crowned by the maxim that Japanese women are the most beautiful.
But the house may have, for example, a latrines, a cesspool or just a garbage can. These are black myths and all sorts of marginal things like hentai, guru and other nefarious things.
But the house is still first of all rooms, kitchen, sanitary knot, finally. But in addition to all these alpha places, there are also “internal” types of attic, closet or basement, where a person’s foot does not go for years. Stored there is either broken junk, or something working from the series “... and throw away a pity”. In the end, we get something purely “heaps” ... “for statistics.”
Rural life in medieval Europe and modern Japan also fits into all these formats and standards. If you find yourself on the periphery, then often the only value of such a person is purely statistical. Once in such conditions, people act differently. Most people try to escape to the city or to another country, but someone stays. Someone has nowhere to run, someone has too much to do with their past. With its roots. But you have to live.
Life is a multifaceted concept and one of the hypostases is freedom. Freedom from and freedom for. At the same time, the Western type of man craves freedom “so that there is.” Often faced with the question formulated by V.V. Vysotsky “I was given freedom at night, what I will do with it...” Western people will not be able to say anything. In fact, the city has no roots. That is why it is easy to climb.
What if the house is not just a stamp in the passport? Many villagers feel like serfs. Nowhere to run, no work, hands down. But those who discover freedom within remain. And then... it all depends on the person. Someone finds peace, and someone dies.
In many works, the image of a woman is separated from others. Remember who in Russia live well. The woman in the sand is actually a Japanese version. What happens if a woman doesn't want to leave her grove and a man isn't around? The world turns into a sand object, where everything is fragile, everything crumbles, there is no support and all life is reduced to the struggle for existence. The desert is a kind of model of loneliness, where freedom is above the roof, go where you want, do what you want, but it doesn't matter. But if there is a man nearby and not just a man, but a man who is able to feel the situation ...
On the example of this film you can build tellurium. First, the protagonist has a geocentric system, where in the center he and everything revolves around him. He wants to eat, he wants to be famous, he wants to ... and serve it immediately. In the end, he realizes that this is not the world orbiting the Earth, it is a complex system where the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon around the Earth and so on. You might ask, what about the movie? And in the film, the Japanese prefer to show the evolution of the universe as a whole, because the main characters and their environment are changing, Japan is changing. It goes from the wild Middle Ages - the apotheosis of a pagan scene with non-family content to modern civilization. And here's the big point. The main character could give up and die or win and leave this world. But. Japan is a rare country that tries to absorb Western values on the one hand and preserve its identity on the other.
What was that? A parable? Thriller? Maybe even comedy. Here, in my opinion, is the case when there is a genre conflict between the film and the book. The book is not scary. A book, more of an adventure or even a fantasy. But the film, although most critics and scold the Americans who saw the thriller ... maybe because really thriller. Pay attention to the frequent pictures of the onset of sand, which are accompanied by non-Buddhist music. And it was this thriller stuffing that was not in the book, well, or it was not so accented and did not allow me to put 10.
Oriental culture (and Japanese culture is no exception) is very symbolic. What are these images and what does a woman in the sand have to do with it? In my opinion, the most accurate diagnosis and the most key symbol found by Lidia Vasiliva Here is a quote.
A desert is a woman without a man. Nicky sees it, but that life is not for him, he protests. Water will be the main means of connecting them. Author Kobo Abe probably gives a hint that resistance is not the only way, and there is nowhere to run if there is no harmony inside.
And it's not male centrism or anything. Just as long as there is a harmonious pair - a man-woman - any desert is overcome and any element is not terrible. Otherwise, it is a misfortune because a woman, whether she is a geisha, a chan or a hentai character, becomes simply an object for statistics.
A woman in the sands & nbsp;— parable of the absurd.
“There is no spectacle more beautiful than the struggle of the intellect against a reality superior to it.” A. Camus, “Essay on the Absurd.”
There is no punishment more terrible than useless and hopeless labor. The hero of the picture, like Sisyphus, whom the Gods condemned to lift a huge stone to the top of the mountain, from where this block invariably rolled down, is doomed to constantly remove the sand applied by the wind.
The hero of the picture is a rebellious man, and the external rebellion at the beginning of the film, manifesting in rebellion, an attempt to escape, is replaced by an internal rebellion that arises as a result of the realization of the absurd, which allows him to eventually reevaluate his fate and become free. The hell of the present has finally become its kingdom.
Human life is short, as are short-lived footprints in the sand, they will be washed away by the first wave of wind.
Hiroshi Teshigahara suggests considering the value of our existence and the meaning of being. This is not the story of a particular person, it is the story of thousands of possible lives. Reflecting on who a man is and what makes him so, Hiroshi Teshigahara turns to Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Sands. At first glance, the external conflict seems understandable. Nicki Jumpei, a scientist, spends three days vacationing in the desert in search of a new species of insect. Discover a new kind - the path to fame, the opportunity to get into the list of entomological dictionary. On the last day of vacation, he is kindly offered accommodation by local residents. The house is located in the valley of a sand pit, which cannot be reached without a rope ladder. Descending into an old cramped hut, the happy scientist receives a warm welcome from the hostess. The peculiarities of conversation and everyday life do not confuse him, because the hostess is so friendly. The fact that most of the time a young woman shovels the sand away from her house at night just looks wonderful to him. Are there few customs in the desert? The woman's name is Kyoko and we'll learn a little about her, but it's a little bit of her whole life. The intrigue unfolds in the morning when Niki Jumpei realizes that he has become a captive of locals and the future husband of the woman he first saw last night. The situation is turning around. The scientist has been catching insects all his life and now he finds himself in a space from which there is no escape. The desert is not a city, everything lives according to its own laws.
This picture touches on a huge number of topics: political, sociological, psychological, moral, religious, ideological, philosophical, and any! Because everyone has the right to life and choice. Niki Jumpei, a civilized man, a city dweller and can not tolerate captivity, the main idea is to escape. He's fighting for his life as best he can. Trying to escape along the steep slopes of the sand, which is impossible, destroys an already fragile shack in anger, blackmails his abusers, even weaves a ladder, but everything is pointless. Nicky starts working. To die at the bottom of a sand pit, hundreds of kilometers from his hometown, in obscurity is a stupid sacrifice, for what? It is a pity to admit that man is adaptable. However, everything has a second side, like a medal, a kind of life contradiction: day-night, sand-sea, moon-sun. Perhaps he missed something, did not see the obvious clues of fate, because it is not so easy to explain why certain events happen to us. The film was shot on black and white film at the insistence of the director, despite the fact that the film industry allowed to make colorful films. Black and white tones have many shades, the main thing is to consider them, sometimes unequivocal things fraught with contradictions.
In Eastern philosophy, the woman is the earth and the man is the sky. It rains from the sky, it irrigates the earth, it blooms. Kyoko is the image of a loving, trusting woman. She harmoniously fits into this world, she loves her homeland and understands its elements. “It’s better to sleep naked at night,” the heroine advises. We see how tremblingly the operator shows the naked female body, it becomes clear how fragile and defenseless she is, the only thing she needs is care. “It is difficult for a woman to be alone in such and such a life,” she says again. The desert is a woman without a man. Nicky sees it, but that life is not for him, he protests. Water will be the main means of connecting them.
This movie is a parable. We will never know the full biography of the characters, for example, how Kyoko ended up in a sand pit, where her parents are, how she knows the city of Tokyo, whether she has a passport? That's not necessary. The main change comes with Nicky, who is used to managing his life by killing innocent insects for a collection of interest. Fate plays with him. Three months, three long months, the scientist dreams of getting out of the pit to see the sea and trying to somehow agree. Please, please. The scientist is the sea, the inhabitants are a spectacle. Public rape is the price, for a short opportunity to feel free. What is called the rod of a person, this is what suddenly breaks down, only the sound sounds. Like demons, people in masks with drums appear from everywhere; their barbaric carnival circles over two defenseless creatures and demands, demands spectacle. "We are pigs anyway," whispers Nicky, convinced of his insignificance. He lost everything he had, he had nothing to respect. The stage is built in a grotesque style, very theatrical. This performance enhances the finale, which the viewer does not know. Of course, the scene evokes sympathy with the hero, but in order to be reborn, one must first die. Both the director and the author help the scientist destroy himself. Acting on the principle - "Not much fell, you also stepped" - Japanese proverb.
Emaciated by the struggle, Niki Jumpei does not believe in the possible changes in the situation. But the suddenly discovered way of extracting water in the desert - a forgotten school lesson "Condensation" - flips the picture's understanding of black and white. The changes he was waiting for were in his mind. With a chance to escape, Niki Jumpei looks into his reflection for a long time; a discovery sorely needed for the locals obliges him to stay. There will be no shortage of fresh water, he has acquired special knowledge and is eager to share. Now his place is in the sand. The last link in the chain of events that reinforces the correctness of this choice is the pregnancy of Kyoko. Author Kobo Abe probably gives a hint that resistance is not the only way, and there is nowhere to run if there is no harmony inside. Having passed a difficult path of spiritual vicissitudes, Niki Dzyumpei finds a different meaning of his existence.
Author of the novel “Woman in the Sands” Kabo Abe was also interested in photography. One of his favorite themes was surveillance. Motive of snooping. "Woman in the Sands" Cabo offers the reader to follow, to look at the broken life, but not yet broken the main character.
The screen adaptation of a literary work, especially such a deep one, is, of course, not able to fully cover and express all the problems of the original source. In his work, Hiroshi Teshigahara attempted to convey the mood, atmosphere and character of the original story. Without plot digressions, without willfulness, but also without revealing many subtexts. Simplifying, he conveyed the essence, retelling the novel through film language.
The main character, whose name will become known only at the very end, is an entomologist by profession. He took a three-day vacation and went to the desert to find a type of insect. After spending all day searching, he agrees to spend the night in a lonely village. On the rope ladder, he is lowered to the bottom of a deep pit, where a woman lives in a modest, dilapidated shack. Most of the time, she is busy cleaning up the sand that fills her house. The woman is friendly, polite and, of course, provides accommodation.
But in the morning, the hero suddenly finds that the rope ladder has disappeared. Of course, this is some kind of misunderstanding, but very soon the hero will discover a frightening and absurd truth. The impregnable sand walls of the pit become its trap. And at the bottom there is only a miserable house and an equally pathetic person who knew everything from the beginning. Now he is trapped, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.
Being in this position, the hero tries at all costs to get out of the trap. In his attempts he reaches the most inventive ways. And one day he even manages to go upstairs. But even then, escape is impossible - in the vast desert expanses, fate, as if mocking, presents a meeting with quicksands, which become an insurmountable obstacle.
A month goes by, another, third. The hero dutifully rakes away the sand (otherwise he will be left without water and rations), but there is still hope in it. This is the paradox seen already in a cursory analysis of the author’s attitude to his character. Kabo Abe gives him amazing strength of character and will. At the same time, he repeatedly beats off all the reader's sympathy for his hero. The author repeatedly draws the desert prisoner as an absolutely selfish and mercantile person without any nobility. And Hiroshi Teshigahara enjoys retaining these traits.
There are many examples. Indicative in considering the image of the main character is the scene of his first night at the bottom. Then, in communication with his future cohabitant, he demonstrates his intellectual and social superiority in a snobbish and arrogant way. After all, he is a scientist, and she is an uneducated, ignorant peasant. It is not attractive either.
Among the illustrative moments, one can also highlight a scene in which the hero almost pushes the woman away and greedily rushes to a bucket of water. Or, say, his attempt to publicly rape his partner. Thus, the reader not only does not see in the character at least any decent person, but, moreover, feels rejection.
It is interesting to watch the changes in the hero and how he adapts. His rebellion is muted, and now he is trying to somehow coexist with his given. In this sense, his idea of catching a crow is especially interesting. Also interesting is his finding about the condensation of water in the bucket. In his imprisonment, he not only does not give up, but also tries to somehow improve his life.
In the same scene with a crow trap, the hero throws an interesting phrase: “Sometimes you want to become a fisherman.” Perhaps it expresses the entire metaphorical nature of the work. It is a bold feature that highlights the entire leitmotif of the film.
The entomologist caught insects until he was caught. It became the same part of the collection that I collected. The subtext is obvious, but therefore does not become less impressive. And the horror of the current situation only gains strength from the inevitability, which is similar to Kafkaesque, and which again and again overturns the hero to the bottom.
The more significant is the finale, which ironically emphasizes how insignificant and ridiculous attempts to fight and confront reality can be. And also how great the power of adaptation and adaptability can be.
Curious are the visual means by which Hiroshi Teshigahara speaks to the viewer. So, the picture, in which the hero is just sitting on the sand, is interesting because of how high the person is. It would be absolutely absurd to think that the director for a moment forgot about, say, the rule of thirds and the elementary construction of the composition. Such a deliberately high position is like an ironic visual hint. Very soon, the same person for happiness will accept only the opportunity to sit at least briefly on top, not in a hole. It also metaphorically indicates that at the moment he is at the top of his life, and, as you know, the higher you soar, the more painful it is to fall. To the bottom of the pit, to the bottom of life, to the bottom of existence.
In the smallest details, the director reflected not only the severity of life in the desert, but also the crazy situation. It is also interesting how he showed the scarcity of this dilapidated house. The hero then hits his head, then touches the umbrella, which is now and then there. With respectable painstakingness, the details of the entourage were transferred from paper to the screen, although these details, strictly speaking, are not so much.
The film adaptation, of course, did not cover all aspects of the problems of the original work, but it was squeezed out of the format of a full meter, perhaps all that is possible. "Woman in the Sands" is a terrible vision, a dream that makes you want to wake up. The punishment for audacity to exist free.
East and West reconvene, like two childhood antagonists, in an old-world battle for a single human soul. There is nothing special about this person. Quite the opposite, Niki Jumpei is a normal face in the crowd. Dozens of them pass by you in the bustle of everyday life. Modest pawns who don’t care much about each new move. They are warmed by their little desires and prides, and the last thing you might suspect is that their soul will soon turn into a desert landfill. Here will boil passions, flash new hopes and wither old dreams. A dry taste of sand will freeze on your lips, and a single rhetorical question will flash in your eyes. What can change human nature?
Kobo Abe and Hiroshi Teshigahara throw our amateur entomologist into a sand pit with the hands of unwashed peasants. It has everything to survive: food, drink, clothing, physical labor, a woman. Let go of the old world, forget about your dream, become an unnecessary line in the naturalist handbook, and you will find quiet peace and happiness. Yes, you're confined to the perimeter of the sand cage, but why run anywhere? To prove to the world that you're worth something? Tell people who don’t care about you and don’t care about you? That was the meaning of your life until you fell into a loose trap. The world beyond the walls of burning captivity will still be cold and indifferent to your prayers. There, on such a coveted big land, no one will remember you, because there is no one, and most importantly, there is no need to do this. So tell me, how is this new house worse than your old one? Only by being held in it by force.
Taking the almost Kafkaesque episode with imprisonment as the zero point of reference, Kobo Abe turns the “Castle” inside out with his unflinching hand. In Woman in the Sands, the strange village is still inhabited by grotesque inhabitants whose daily cyclical and most likely meaningless ritual is still a measure of time and a symbol of inevitable fate. But the pointers are turned in the opposite direction, and the compass of absurd logic, mad, begins to dance a good tap dance. Everything here is as in ordinary life, despite the complete irrationality of the surrounding world. To survive, you have to work. And even if the actions are completely devoid of clear explanations, they give you a piece of bread for them. That's enough to make it to the next day, and then work again. A closed circle, escape from which is possible only with the help of a mad plan.
Acting as a tangible ally to the plot, the image in every way tries to convince the viewer of the reality of everything that is happening. Black and white shots create an elegant illusion of chronicles, deliberately close-ups of insects accumulate the effect of documentary. Each episode whispers silently: "Look back, it's all real." This could actually happen.” The allegorical parable of doom and rebirth unwittingly turns into a dry set of facts. And only sand throughout the film remains a capacious and stylish metaphor. Symbolizing eternity, then moments, then freedom, then the cell, filling life with a semblance of meaning and with a grin taking away the slightest hopes, the sand becomes a living organism, a charming witness and a wise storyteller. He knows everything that has been and will be. It is he, not people, who decides who will live here, and whose minutes are lost in oblivion. Even the sea, so coveted, timidly hides its arms before the sandy breeze. Sand dunes are the true power of the elements and the passion of nature.
Day after day, Niki Jumpei dissolves in the surrounding sand. He no longer has the strength or desire to run. Having accepted his fate, he finally finds freedom. Human nature has changed. What caused this? Love, suffering, remorse? But who told you that Nicky's identity changed? Clothing changed, unnecessary documents flew into the fire, flasks with insects turned into a mountain of garbage. But has man himself changed? The one standing next to a barrel filled with water. The one who, obeying the law of the heart, must tear his hair on himself, and lamentably exclaim: “For what?”, having just lost two close people – a cohabitant and an unborn child. No, he's thinking very differently now. He made an important discovery and this discovery will be appreciated by the villagers. The same ones who mocked him yesterday, equating him with a soulless beast. Today they will respect him.
Niki Jumpei will never return to Tokyo. And why? He found what he was looking for. What he really wanted was not insects, but recognition. And he will more than get it, sitting in a sand trap revelling in his little discovery. Vanity, too enduring a vice for time and suffering to eradicate from the human soul.
On the sandy shore of the sea wanders a man with equipment for catching insects. A little more luck - and his name will appear at the end of the long Latin name of the plain desert fly. The city suit, documents in his pants pocket, three-day vacation and a pre-purchased return ticket give his footprints in the shaky sand a clear imprint of confidence. A law-abiding citizen, a professional teacher, an amateur entomologist, a family man and a person who is free in his thoughts and deeds. But, hit by the invisible hand of the wind, the upper layer of grains of sand is already pouring to the bottom of the trap prepared for him. Monstrous in its absurdity nightmare - the humiliation of an insect caught in a jar with suffocating formalin. Wake up, break out, run away. Revenge.
A master of Japanese avant-garde prose, Kobo Abe has created a stunning claustrophobic fantasy, frighteningly realistic in detail and mesmerizing in its symbolism. Director Hiroshi Teshigahara, who took up his own interpretation of “Women in the Sands” in 1963, managed to convey not only the idea, but also to transfer the special sensory nature of the book to film language. The calligraphic skill of Hiroshi Segawa, alternating hypnotizing field shootings of sand dunes with the textured expressiveness of close-ups, helped the actor’s duo organically fit into this universe of sand madness. Eiji Okada and Kyoko Keshida gradually disappear into the sine wave infinity of desert landscapes, finding themselves in the archetypal nature of Men and Women. The flat screen image becomes suddenly physically tangible - the barchans gracefully flow in the smooth line of the shoulders, the soft roundness of the chest and the warm trench of the abdomen. The woman, so dangerously and clearly separated from the background, turns into an exciting silhouette. Dry throat and precious moisture, instantly evaporates from the inflamed surface of the man's skin. Compliance and submission. To enter it as in these sands, to seep in, to fill, to subdue and... to lose oneself. Irreversible.
Toru Takemitsu, who split the musical background of the picture into a thousand painfully sweet shades of pain, closed the current chain between the inner expression of the book and its adaptation. Declaring his creative goal to bring “dirty” scratches of noise into the realm of overly organized and emasculated music, the composer wrote an original psychedelic soundtrack for the film, based on a mixture of instrumental genres, combining a ringing melody and rough disharmony. The film turned into an anthem of alienation, violence, eroticism, horror and an emotional abyss, where the main character plunged. The picture of Teshigahara gradually begins to act on the nerves as it is viewed, forcing you to choke on powerless rage, exhilarating with primitive sensuality, disturbing the infernal beauty of its black and white aesthetics. The irrational reality of the film penetrates into the pores of the spectator's imagination as persistently and inexorably as the ubiquitous antimatter of sand.
The recognition of the final scene as a defeat is the litmus that very accurately reveals the difference in the basic worldview systems of the East and the West. Like a resonance for Teshigahara’s masterpiece, in 1976 the film adaptation of Buzzatti’s novel “The Desert of Tartari” was filmed – a parable about the fluidity and irreversibility of life, about lost opportunities and fruitless dreams. Instead of the gradually maddening soundtrack Takemitsu - discolored, dried, like dehydrated music Morricone. Instead of a pit dug in the sand, a military fortress in the desert. Passivity as a trap of spiritual old age, once and for all adopted by the Charter as the embodiment of ruthless life routine, sucking force, taking away the desire to strive and change something. Kafkaianism versus Confucianism, existentialism versus Buddhism, the hopelessness of humility versus rethinking life and realizing a fundamentally different meaning of existence.
It is symbolic that two great films, seemingly similar situationally and consonant with the stated problems, distance themselves from each other in their inner message. Unlike the characters of “The Desert of Tartari”, the main character of “Women in the Sands” for two hours of screen and three months of real time lives a complex chain of spiritual rebirths. The film gradually and ruthlessly erases his former identity as a situation of imposed predestination. According to the ancient and non-retroactive law of negation, the ghostly multilayered nature of his ego is grinded into the smallest sand. The evil infinity of the multiplicity of roles created and imposed by civilization, culture, and society turns to dust. And when there seems to be nothing left but emptiness...
On the water surface, the reflection of an unfamiliar, long-unshaven person in local clothes shudders and sways. Fingers slowly and with pleasure plunge into the transparent font of the newborn soul. The bottom of the sand pit, turned inside out and became a convex top of the hill. Mathematician, artist, poet and philosopher, Hiroshi Teshigahara set a simple and ingenious film laboratory experience, demonstrating the emergence of a new human personality from lost ties with the outside world, the loss of former illusions, the subtle borderliness of being. Passing through pristineness, primitiveness, the ultimate simplification of vital processes, the hero of “Woman in the Sands” paradoxically extracts a completely different meaning of his life – like precious water from the barren sands of the desert. The truth of his new reality lies in finding oneself through the rejection of the super-necessary, in helping others and fighting for the urgent. A philosophy of life based on the simplest human truths and asking the most important question: Who are you?